


I've Always Known Who You Are

by crescentmoontea



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angry Ren, Bisexual Male Character, But he's trying, Canon-Typical Violence, Complicated Relationships, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Persona 5 Spoilers, Persona 5: The Royal Spoilers, Slice of Life, chatlogs (occasional), ren and akechi have an interesting definition of rivalry, ren struggles to process past and present trauma, some Canon Dialogue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:09:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26035459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescentmoontea/pseuds/crescentmoontea
Summary: “Mm, precisely. That means my rival’s one step ahead of me.” Akechi’s lips settled on Ren’s neck, setting his skin ablaze in the shape of his words. “But I’ll never let you win.”//Ren knows exactly who Akechi is.A longform exploration of P5R if Ren (and only Ren) figured things out a whole lot sooner.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 125
Kudos: 412





	1. slice of life / the night before

The Inogami line was empty that night. 

Ren still wasn’t used to the subway. Wasn’t used to the idea that he could just board a train and go wherever the hell he wanted in a city as dense and varied as Tokyo. Back home, Ren could only go as far as he could bike. And it wasn’t like he had many places to go, or many people who wanted him to come visit, since the night of the assault. 

When the drunk man lost his balance and fell to the ground, it was Ren’s future that shattered across the concrete, and the quiet anger already smoking in his heart sparked into a white-hot fury at everyone and everything unjust in the world. There was no place in the inaka for a furious teenager with a record: Ren’s high school expelled him, his neighbors stopped nodding when they passed him on the sidewalk, and his already-distant parents gave up making eye contact at all; Ren passed the weeks waiting for the day they’d wash their hands of him completely. 

So when they sat him down at the table in late March, he thought he knew what was coming.

_“An open-minded prep school in Tokyo accepted you.”  
“But I didn’t apply--”  
“Shut up. You’ll have to repeat your second year, but you wouldn’t be so ungrateful as to complain about that, correct? You leave in two weeks. Pack.”_

Ren did as he was told. He sealed his favorite clothes in a cardboard box and shipped it to the address his parents wrote down. He bought some thick black glasses that hid his eyes, and on the day of his trip, put them on for the first time, pairing them with his new school’s uniform to look as unassuming as possible. He arrived in Tokyo on his 18th birthday, ready to keep his head down and grit his teeth -- and was almost immediately threatened with expulsion by a teacher at his new school, after stumbling into a supernatural fucking castle ruled by that teacher’s distorted shadow. 

_Yeah._

It probably should’ve ruined him, should’ve finished what the drunk asshole started and destroyed him once and for all. But somehow, instead of ruin, Ren found some facsimile of a purpose, some tiny glimmers of hope, some _power_ in the bright lights of Tokyo and the dark corners of what he came to know as the Metaverse. The day everything changed, in the depths of Kamoshida’s dungeon, Ryuji was about to be executed and Ren was in chains. He felt a shadow’s spear pressing into his back, felt the handcuffs from his arrest snapping back around his wrists, felt his parents’ shame binding his ankles and if those goddamn guards didn’t kill him, the anger in his blood was going to boil him alive--

 _“Call my name and release thy rage!”_ a deep voice bellowed, scornful and impatient, its knuckles rapping against the underside of Ren’s chest.

 _“Arsène!”_ Ren screamed, ripping the mask from his face for the very first time, blood spilling down his cheeks and dripping off his chin. 

Morgana never looked anything but impressed by Arsène; Ryuji looked absolutely terrified, though he’d quickly traded the fear for admiration once he was freed. But it was still too much: summoning Arsène made Ren feel naked in a way the thick trenchcoat his cognition wrapped around him couldn’t clothe. So he killed Arsène the first chance he got--not that Arsène could _really_ be killed, but he could be hidden, buried deep in some cavernous hollow within Ren’s ribs--then began his quest to fill his mask with persona after persona. With a squadron at his beck and call, Ren could be anyone. It came naturally, and it was safer. Easier. It didn’t matter that it was also decidedly less his, didn’t matter that sometimes Ren missed the searing, intoxicating lap of Arsène’s flames against his skin--

Ren sighed and shook his head as the train rumbled around a corner; his mind was determined to drag him places he didn’t want to go. 

**absolutely not the phantom thieves’ group chat**  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: anyone wanna try that darts place ryuji found?  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: sorry renren, moms got me on cooking duty  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: im making that ultra premium instant yakisoba tonight!!  
>>Ann✮Chan: but that’s not real cooking??? why not make her homemade yakisoba??? or something nice like simmered fish???  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: last time i tried cooking from scratch i scorched the cooktop  
>>Ann✮Chan: yikes.  
>>Ann✮Chan: sorry, but i cant make it either, im eating with shiho and her family tonight. she’s allowed guests once a week now ♥  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: no worries guys. yusuke?  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: I apologize, but I am unable to tear myself away from the canvas tonight. The most incandescently beautiful array of shadows are dancing  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: across the window of my dormitory tonight and I simply must capture their essence before the last of the evening’s light is extinguished like the flame of a candle.  
>>Ann✮Chan: wow  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: Also, I have lost my dormitory key and won’t be receiving a new one until I can pay the ￥2000 replacement fee. I am not sure when that will be.  
>>”That” Sakamato-kun: wtf you moved in like two days ago. how’d ya lose it already???  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: are you able to leave to go to classes?  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: Yes, thus far the daytime security guard has taken pity on me.  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: Enjoy playing darts with Morgana, Ren.  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: nah morgana’s wandering around yongen, ann took him home for me since i had to see maruki today  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: thanks again ann  
>>Ann✮Chan: you’re welcome ♥♥  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: Well then, have a pleasant evening of social isolation! I look forward to joining you next time.  
>>Ann✮Chan: see you guys tomorrow ♥  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: later dudes

“Kichijoji. The final stop on this train is Kichijoji. Thank you for riding the Inogami line.” 

Ren rose from his seat and melted into the crowd pushing its way out the opening doors. When he and Ryuji visited the other day, they played darts at Penguin Sniper after wandering the streets peering in the windows of all the shops and restaurants; by the time they were riding the train back to Shibuya, Ren had completely fallen for Kichijoji. He liked Yongenjaya well enough, especially Leblanc, but sometimes its tiny alleyways felt a little too closed-off, too guarded by the locals patrolling their regular haunts night after night. Some parts of Kichijoji were sort of like that too, especially the frenetic Tetrisboard of bars that made up Harmony Alley, but instead of closed doors and yellowed shoji screens, the bars were open-air, full of laughter and clinking glassware. Kichijoji had a bit of that larger-than-life Shibuyan vibrancy mixed into its neighborhood griminess. Ren almost didn’t feel out of place there.

It was a nice feeling.

Since group darts had fallen through, Ren decided to take it easy and have a meal before heading back home to meet up with Morgana. He tried to buy a ground beef katsu from Hagoromo Meat, but they were sold out again; he settled for vending machine tea and a couple of peppery nikuman from a shop on the edge of the drinking area, heading over to a random side alley in search of a quiet spot to eat. ”Retro Street,” declared its banner, as a sudden barrage of raindrops pelted it sideways.

It would do, Ren decided, ducking into the doorway of a shuttered record shop and sinking to the ground, letting his hair fall in his eyes as he ate. Rain drummed on the awning above him, muffling the sudden chorus of shrieks from the crowds on the main road. Ren’s mind wandered back to therapy that afternoon, picking apart his responses as the familiar fear of saying too much stirred within his gut. 

“You’ve told me before that your heart hurts the most when someone betrays you, correct?” Dr. Maruki’s voice always dripped with something shaky that Ren couldn’t place whenever he talked; his narrowed-eye stare never failed to raise the hairs on the back of Ren’s neck.

“Yep.” _Stupid of me to let that one slip._

“But you also told me that you think the pain of falling in love is necessary.”

“Mhm.” _God, what was wrong with me last time? Why did I talk so much?_

“Do you say that from experience, Amamiya-kun? Is there a girl you’re in love with now, or perhaps one in your past?”

“You shouldn’t make assumptions like that,” Ren snapped without thinking.

“Pardon me? What did I assume?”

You shouldn’t assume I’d only fall in love with a girl, Ren wanted to say. But he bit his tongue and said nothing, opting only to shake his head for the seventh time that session. It wasn’t that his bisexuality was a secret, exactly, but enough of his identity had already been weaponized against him at Shujin. There was no reason to offer them additional ammunition because the therapist they hired to assess him asked him about it politely. 

Dr. Maruki took his cue and dropped the subject, nodding again before steering the conversation back to the nature of cognition, dragging Ren back into the usual weekly minefield of dodging questions just a little too pointed in the direction of the Phantom Thieves. Ren was always careful. He fastidiously avoided the topic of Kamoshida, was certain he hadn’t dropped any hints about Madarame, didn’t talk about his friends or the bruises under his blazer or why he was always falling asleep in class. When it came to his secrets, Ren was a goddamn stone fortress, silent and steadfast. Nothing and no one could break him down--

“Shit. Could’ve sworn the forecast was clear tonight,” a not-quite-familiar voice mumbled from above him. 

Ren looked up, the nurse’s office dissipating into the alley’s glimmering puddles, and saw a flash of amber-brown hair bobbing down the stairs to an underground bar. He hadn’t seen the man’s face, but that hair color was distinctive. That cute Detective Prince he’d seen on TV in Leblanc a couple times--what was his name again?--had hair like that. Sounded kind of like his voice, too, although he’d never heard the detective curse on TV. 

But Tokyo was a giant city, and the odds of running into a celebrity were beyond improbable. No way had he seen someone from TV going into some dingy, underground Kichijoji bar, Ren decided. Celebrities stuck to the flashier areas. And wasn’t the Detective Prince still in high school, anyways? 

Ren shook his head. It didn’t matter. He pulled out his phone and was alarmed to find that it was almost 10 PM. 

_Morgana’s going to kill me_ , he thought as he packed up, drew his umbrella, and hastily wove his way through the groups in the street towards the station. 

***

“Seriously?! You went and ate in Kichijoji without me and didn’t even bring me back a nikuman!?” Morgana howled, fur puffing over his back as Ren stepped through the threshold of Leblanc.

Ren dropped his umbrella in the bucket by the welcome mat and locked the cafe’s door behind him. “They were all spiced. Cats get sick if they eat spices.” 

“Irrelevant, since I’m NOT a cat!” Morgana leapt from the counter onto Ren’s shoulder. “Also, do you even know what time it is right now? You should be in bed!”

“I’m not tired,” Ren shrugged, feeling Morgana’s fur brush against his ear. “Think I’m gonna work out a bit.”

“Like hell you are!” Morgana sunk his claws into Ren’s collarbone as he climbed the stairs to the attic loft. “Don’t you have the first day of your social studies trip tomorrow? Do you even know how to get to Akasaka-Mitsuke station?”

“I mean, no, but I’ll read the signs or something--”

“Right, because that went soooo well when you tried to find the Ginza line your first day of school--”

Ren picked Morgana up from his perch and unceremoniously dumped him on the couch. “If I steal you a can of tuna right now, will you let me work out before bed?”

“Two cans of tuna.”

“One. Sojiro’ll notice two.”

“Fine. One _and_ we get to go wherever I want after your field trip tomorrow.”

“Deal.” Ren changed into his workout clothes before darting downstairs to retrieve the bribe from Leblanc’s rickety pantry.

“But you know the Phantom Thieves only act when the decision’s unanimous, so get ready to beg Ann and Ryuji tomorrow,” he added once Morgana was happily eating.

“Ugh, fine,” Morgana conceded in between messy bites of tuna. “They’re easy marks. Now hurry up. You get as many hanging sit-ups as you can do before I finish eating, so make them count.” 

“Sounds like a challenge,” Ren grinned, dragging a chair over so he could climb onto the thick wooden beam in his ceiling. Blood rushed to his head as he hung upside down and clenched his core. His stomach sizzled and his legs burned as he forced out twenty decent-form sit-ups before Morgana started yelling at him to get down. 

The miniscule workout wasn’t nearly enough to tire him out for a dreamless sleep, but only long days in the Metaverse could do that -- and even they weren’t an infallible strategy against Ren’s inability to get a decent night’s rest. Ren lay awake (again) until the sounds of the last patrons stumbling out of the bars further down Leblanc’s alleyway wafted past his ears. Once their footsteps and chatter faded, Ren was left (again) with only the low buzzing of the power lines and Morgana’s quiet breathing. Ren vowed (again and again and a-fucking-gain) to check the secondhand shop for a damn white noise machine, or maybe to beg Takemi for stronger sleeping pills, because this was goddamn unbearable night after night. 

_Velvet Room or nightmare?_ his mind mocked him. _What awaits you tonight? Why don’t you stay awake a few extra hours before you find out?_

The anxiety raked its claws over his exhausted skull, scratching until he was numb enough to finally fall asleep.


	2. the beginning

“Now I understand why the floors in Mementos are always changing,” Ren grumbled. He tapped his Suica on its fifth turnstyle of the morning, scanning his new surroundings for a vending machine that sold canned coffee. Had he made his first cup decaf by accident? Was that why all the stations he’d transferred in looked so _alike_? The rush of morning commuters truly did resemble their pollen-addled counterparts in the Metaverse, dazed and half-asleep but no less rageful when knocked into by mistake. 

“Wait, you’re making another transfer?” Morgana squirmed as another elbow knocked into Ren’s bag. “Are you sure you’re going the right way this time?”

Ren sped past a group of tourists studying a guidebook and scanned the parallel platforms at the end of the walkway. “We’ll be there soon,” he declared, boarding the first train that pulled into the station. “I can feel it.”

Morgana peered out of the bag and studied the map posted on its wall. “Even though we’re going towards Asakusa, not Akasaka?”

“Shit--”

 **absolutely not the phantom thieves’ group chat**  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: renren the tour is about to start, where are you???  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: i might have gotten lost  
>>Ann✮Chan: i knew we should have met up in shibuya this morning  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: i mean maybe if we were goin somewhere far away  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: but seriously renren akasaka-mitsuke is one stop past aoyama-itchome, how did you fuck this up?  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: ...it’s on the ginza line??  
>>Ann✮Chan: oh my god  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: What station are you messaging us from, Ren? If you are near Kosei, I’d be happy to help you board a train in the correct direction.  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: don’t worry about it yusuke  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: not sure exactly where i am anyways  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: dude?????

***

“You’ve got guts, Renren, strollin’ in that late starin’ Kawakami down!” Ryuji jabbed Ren in the ribs as the Thieves splintered off from the rest of the class.

Ren shoved his hands in his pockets, kicked a heel against his ankle as he spoke. “I was trying to get her attention so I could apologize.”

Ann reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “Let’s meet in Shibuya tomorrow morning, okay?”

“I made it to Kichijoji and back just fine last night,” Ren protested.

“No way, man, we can’t risk you bein’ late again tomorrow. It’s the taping!” Ryuji flashed a ridiculous grin, framing his face with his hands. “Whaddaya think? They’re sure to put me on TV, right?”

“Not a chance,” Morgana shouted from inside Ren’s bag.

“Shut up! They would if they knew I was a Phantom Thie--”

“Stop saying that out loud!” Ann hissed, cutting Ryuji off with a glare. “Anyways. Do you guys want to check out some shops before we go home?”

Ren did not want to check out any shops; he wanted to go back to Yongenjaya, inhale an extra-spicy plate of Sojiro’s curry, and dissolve the day in the steam of the bathhouse, scrub away the stains from all the comments his classmates made. _The criminal’s here. I’m surprised he bothered to show up at all. Why’d he have to pick this trip, anyway? I hope he doesn’t stand near me._

Most days, he let their words drip off his chin and drown in the sibilating hum of the Shujin hallways, no more intrusive than a dropped book or a locker being slammed shut. School wouldn’t feel like school if he didn’t pass by someone murmuring about him at least once a day, his classroom wouldn’t be his classroom if there wasn’t a chorus of feigned surprise each time he got a question right. It _hurt_ , but it didn’t slow him down. 

But sometimes too many comments piled up for him to carry. Sometimes he couldn’t ignore how utterly goddamn pointless it felt to put on the airs that he did, all the bows and honorifics and apologies, the endless mimicry of a meek, polite teenager trying not to get in anyone’s way. Sometimes he wished he was strong enough to just snap his glasses in two, strong enough to glare, frown, fucking _talk_ , brag when he was proud and slam his locker when the anger wouldn’t quit chewing on his lungs. 

Every once in a while, he even fantasized about being outed as the leader of the Phantom Thieves. Ren wasn’t like Ryuji, didn’t want the fame or the attention or the love letters from admirers; when he indulged in such fantasies, it was to languish in his anger, ruminate in the disdain that would flood his classmates’ faces if they ever had to reconcile their images of Ren-the-delinquent and Joker, the anonymous vigilante leader. Those were the daydreams he took in his hands and flattened, squeezed until their delicious irony bled between his fingers and squelched against his palms, but never acted on; to sabotage the mundanity of his doleful reality would be to sacrifice everything he and the Thieves were doing to change it. He was angry, but he was always in control, never let himself forget that the only way he could fight, could actually _win_ against the rage that consumed him, was by keeping his mask on, enduring in the light and chasing justice in the shadows. 

But God, sometimes he wished he could just _let go_ \--

Ren opened his mouth to suggest they go to Bikkuri Boy instead of trying somewhere new, but ten sharp claws sunk into his clavicle to silence him.  
“I wanna go to that huge pancake-looking place we passed on the way here!” Morgana demanded. “It looked delicious! What was that?”

“You mean Dome Town?” Ryuji asked.

Ren groaned. A hot, sun-baked park full of couples and families sounded like the exact opposite of the peace he craved from the desolate bathhouse. He'd agreed to go wherever Morgana wanted, but cats couldn’t even ride rollercoasters, anyway. Ren tried to telepathically suggest finding an actual cake shop instead, knowing Morgana would shoot it down out of defiance if he said it aloud.

But instead of saying anything more, Morgana ducked down into Ren’s bag and hid. 

Ren craned his neck past Ryuji and Ann and locked eyes with the very Detective Prince he might have spotted in Kichijoji.

The detective offered Ren-- _only_ Ren--the smallest hint of a smile, and Ren’s heart took off on a frantic sprint in his chest. He wanted to talk to this detective like he’d never wanted to talk to anyone before, fueled by a mix of immediate attraction, quiet intrigue, and a bewildering, terrifying pull from the chambers of his heart where the webs of his bonds were spun. _Bonds_ was Igor’s word for it, not Ren’s, but it fit: the spots where two cracked-open souls cozied up their jagged edges and welded them together. Ren had never felt the tug of a potential bond that strong and sharp before, but he recognized its fainter counterparts from the day Yusuke approached the Thieves rambling about modeling, from when Sojiro, through his gruffness and bravado, walked him up to the attic loft and smiled before disappearing back down the stairs. 

Ren hadn’t sought out a single one of his bonds; he found them all by chance, tripping over them on the sidewalk and snagging them in the pads of his fingers like splinters. He’d felt their beginnings when Mishima owned up to spreading the rumors about Ren around Shujin, when Ann said her very first word to him-- _“liar”_ \--and when the fucking Ginza line made him late for the first day of school and he found Ryuji cursing out the rain. Chance had demolished Ren’s old life, but it was slowly building his new one, too. 

Ren didn’t write off chance anymore.

“Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice your uniforms,” the detective said. “Are you students of Shujin Academy?”

“Yeah, whaddya want?” Ryuji snapped; Ren barely suppressed the urge to elbow him in the back.

The detective took a few steps forward, angling his body away from Ryuji and towards Ren. “I happened to be passing by, so it seemed polite to greet you. We’ll be filming together, after all-- Ah, where are my manners? My name is Goro Akechi.”

 _Akechi_ , Ren thought, _that’s right_. He heard the anchors from Sojiro’s favorite news station in his mind, fawning over _Akechi-kun_ every time they hosted him as a guest. Was that the station Ren was visiting today? He couldn’t remember. 

It was hard to remember anything, actually, with Akechi’s eyes fixed on him like that. 

For eyes that were doing their very best impression of soft and sweet, lingering in blinks that were perfectly timed with tilts of his head, there was a hawkishness lurking in Akechi’s stare that made Ren’s throat dry. Ren usually hated when people stared, but he kind of liked having Akechi’s gaze on him, kind of wanted to see how long he’d loiter, wanted to see what he’d say next--

Akechi pulled out his phone and frowned. “My apologies, I truly was just passing by. There’s a briefing for tomorrow’s recording that I have to attend.” 

Ren’s lips slumped into a frown before he could stop them; as soon as they did, Akechi hesitated another moment. “So, you’re going to have cake now? I missed lunch today, so I’m quite hungry myself.”

 _I’ll take you out for cake, Detective_ , Joker helpfully offered, _if you’re fishing for an invitati-- wait_. 

_Wait--_

All at once, the trembling _want_ to know more about Akechi transformed into a screeching, urgent _need_. Ren bit his tongue, balled his hands into fists inside his pockets, and mimicked the tilt of Akechi’s head, offering the most neutral, serene expression he could fake--

“Huh? Cake? What’re you talking about?” Ryuji sounded lost and annoyed when he should have sounded shocked. 

“Oh, am I mistaken? I thought I heard something about delicious pancakes,” Akechi said before Ren could chime in, looking briefly flustered before snapping his smile back into place. “No matter. See you tomorrow.” 

Akechi turned on his heel and sauntered down the hallway; Ren stared as the echoes of Akechi’s receding steps knocked against his gut, as Akechi’s impossible words wrapped their lips around his throat and _bit_. 

Everyone in the hallway should have been _extremely fucking alarmed_ , because a goddamn celebrity detective had clearly heard Morgana talk, something that was absolutely impossible without first hearing it in the Metaverse. But Ryuji and Ann were already back to chatting amiably about Dome Town, pulling out their phones to text Yusuke like nothing was amiss. Even Morgana himself, once he poked his head back out of the bag, started asking about whether or not cats could ride rollercoasters without so much as a hissed “we’ll discuss this later” into Ren’s ear. 

Nothing made sense; everything had changed, but Ren was somehow the only one who had noticed. 

Ren didn’t say a word the whole walk over to Dome Town, too busy dissecting every syllable of Akechi’s inexplicable comments. Was it because he’d been around the corner when Morgana was talking, unable to actually see him? Some sort of Schrodinger’s Morgana, both cat and human until one laid eyes upon him for the first time? But no, that couldn’t be the case, because Sojiro had heard Morgana for the first time in the loft when he was down in the cafe, and he’d heard meows, not words. Could Akechi’s cognition somehow already be altered into believing all cats could talk, not just Metaversian not-a-cats? Ren supposed he couldn’t rule it out, in the same way he couldn’t rule out that Leblanc’s frequent elderly customers who never actually touched their coffees were actually ghosts, but it seemed pretty damn unlikely.

When they arrived at the amusement park, Ryuji wanted to ride the tallest rollercoaster immediately; Ann bolted to the back of the line to grab their places, leaving Ren with the first round of catsitting. He bought a too-small, too-sweet frozen coffee slush from the concession shop and steadied himself against a wall, drank it down in fat, frantic slurps and waited for Morgana to ask him what the hell had just happened, had he _heard_ what Akechi said, what were they going to _do_ \--

“When I’m human again, I’ll accompany Lady Ann on the scariest rollercoasters in all of Japan!” Morgana declared instead. “Just you watch!”

Ren finished the last of the coffee and crushed the plastic cup in his hands.

As soon as Ann returned, Morgana pounced into her arms; Ren seized the opportunity and followed a green-looking Ryuji into the line for a slightly tamer ride, considering testing the waters with him instead. Ryuji was an open fucking book; he’d spill the realization the second it dawned on him. But Ryuji seemed more keen on taking slow, deep breaths than talking, and Ren soon saw why; as the line wound its way around a trashcan, Ryuji leaned over the rope and puked into it.

“It’s the color of that Akechi guy’s hair!” he proclaimed proudly, and Ren gave up on talking about Akechi for the rest of the outing. 

***

Sometimes, when Ren took a moment to think about the Metaverse--not the palaces and the changes of hearts, but the time he spent outside of time in his blood-stained jumpsuit, ball and chain on his ankle weighed down by words like _wild card_ , _ruin_ , and _rehabilitation_ \--he worried that the success of the Phantom Thieves was riding on a game no one had bothered to teach him how to play. 

That night, Ren tried to summon the Velvet Room, begging Igor to appear so he could beg him for an explanation, but he failed, fell asleep and dreamt of a casino. His friends’ faces were etched into playing cards and dealt into hands, embossed onto coins and slid into a pile on a reckless bet; Ren watched the felt below them open into a sinkhole and swallow them up. He wretched, coughed blood across the green felt of the card table, plunged his red-gloved hands through his own chest and tore tawny glowing ropes from his arteries; he shred them to ribbons and tied them in knots, buried them again in his knees and elbows under the tacky film of his cartilage-- 

***

It was almost time for the taping to begin when Ren spotted Akechi. 

He was standing in the far-back corner of the studio, deep in conversation with two official-looking types, pencils behind their ears and clipboards in their hands. Akechi’s eyes were downcast and serious, his posture curved and his briefcase steadily tapping against his calf. Ren considered sneaking away from his group to try and corner him, but quickly, rightfully dismissed that plan as ridiculous. 

The producers leaned together, bent their heads towards one of the clipboards; the second their eyes were off Akechi, his demeanor changed completely. He looked up, straightened his back and squinted his eyes to scan the growing Shujin crowd, and caught Ren in the act of staring at him. He broke into a wide, smug smile, a momentary display of candor and ferocity -- then wiped it from his face and tapped a producer on the shoulder, pointing to Ren and murmuring something with the same demure expression he’d worn before they looked away. The producer nodded before hurrying Akechi to the side of the garish set; Akechi gave Ren a threatening little wave over his shoulder as he retreated. 

Ren felt a grin of his own digging into the dimples on his cheeks. Excitement rippled through the current of his veins, even as a twinge of guilt nipped at his pulse. Was it really okay, to be _excited_ over the prospect of something so dangerous? To be _excited_ over a secret that could send everything he and the Thieves had worked for toppling down? 

“Everyone, please find an open seat in our section and be quiet,” Kawakami instructed from the front, and chaos descended upon the studio. 

Whatever the hell Akechi was up to--and he was absolutely up to something--Ren wanted a good view. He might’ve been the underdog in this game, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t playing to win, so he quickened his strides and snagged an aisle seat in the second row. The students who were hovering in that area cleared out; for once, his ugly reputation had come in handy. 

“Nice, dude!” Ryuji clapped him on the back as he slid past Ren into the middle seat; Ann settled in on Ryuji’s other side. Ren slid the Monabag under his chair and ignored the displeased yowl.

“Akechi-san’s coming on!” a producer called from the aisle. 

The whole of the audience broke into a chorus of giggles and squeals as Akechi took his seat on stage, wearing a pretty but altogether plastic smile; it was nothing like the one from a few minutes ago, nothing like the one from the hallway the day before. 

Ryuji nudged Ren in the side. “Ain’t that the guy from yesterday?”

“Do you get it now, Ryuji?” Ann asked.

 _Do you?_ Ren held himself back from snapping as the lights dimmed and the glittering set came to life. 

“And now the hottest meet-and-greet segment of our show,” the cheerful female host exclaimed, eyes shining against the glare of the teleprompter. “It’s the high school detective, Goro Akechi!”

“Hello there,” Akechi said with a respectful little nod, a hint of a chuckle layered under his voice. 

It was hard to concentrate on anything the anchors were saying. Ren tried to focus on Akechi’s movements, but he was sitting so still and rigid on the set, there wasn’t anything to dissect. Not to mention that staring at Akechi for too long had the entirely unhelpful effect of intensifying the swooping in Ren’s stomach, the pinpricks of anticipation clambering up and down Ren’s folded arms-- 

“We’ve been told there’s a case on your mind right now,” the male host said, reaching an over-eager arm towards Akechi. “Care to share, Detective?”

 _Yeah, Detective_ , Ren leaned forward in his seat. _Care to share?_

He waited for the answer he hoped wasn’t coming to drop from Akechi’s quirking lips.

“Ah, yes. That would be the scandal involving the master artist Madarame.” 

_There it is_.

Akechi kept talking, making some condescending joke about wishing Santa Claus existed so he could arrest him, but Ren wasn’t listening anymore, because there was no hiding from what Akechi had just admitted. Of all the near-myriad crimes in a city as big as Tokyo, the detective who shouldn’t have heard Morgana’s voice was pondering one of the only crimes whose scenes Morgana had visited in the Metaverse. Ren thought back again to how Morgana had explained the cognition of his voice, flipped through the all possible explanations he’d considered and eliminated until there was only one left. 

In order for Akechi’s mind to recognize Morgana’s meows as a human voice, he had to have been close enough to both see and hear Morgana as he talked in the Metaverse.

And _that_ meant that the Phantom Thieves hadn’t been alone in Madarame’s palace at all, meant that Akechi might have recognized Joker in the hallway yesterday, might not have been staring at _Ren_ at all. Had he been there, watching as Yusuke and Ann tumbled in from the rafters? Moments before, chuckling to himself as Ren and Ryuji bickered by the locked door? Was he there when Morgana tripped the goddamn lasers and trapped everyone but Ren in the gridlock around that shiny sculpture? Did he watch Ren climbing up the tightrope-thin moldings on the walls, gratuitously somersaulting through the air on his grappling hook towards an out-of-the-way will seed? 

Ren’s muscles, his mind, Arsène’s slumbering spirit unspooled at the thought, rattled his bones like they were bars of a cell-- 

“But hypothetically speaking, if the Phantom Thieves are real,” Akechi’s voice cut through Ren’s haze. “I believe they should be tried in a court of law.”

Ren dug his knuckles into his thigh, pressing as hard and as long as it took to keep his face neutral; Ryuji’s back snapped straight and Ann let out a low gasp. The crowd of students started murmuring to each other, a low roar blanketing the studio as the hosts started gently interrogating Akechi. He handled their questions with deft reflexes, never letting the smoothness crack on his face, but Ren didn’t miss how his eyes roiled with anger, even as he smiled.

How exactly had Akechi figured out where to look for the Phantom Thieves? How had he even learned about the Metaverse, let alone gained access? Did the police know more than they’d assumed about the other world, including how to force their way in? Was Akechi still just investigating on his own, as a private detective, withholding his information until he had proof that your average bumbling cop would accept? 

Or had Igor chosen him, too?

 _“What about the other one?”_ Madarame’s pitiful shadow had cried before he dissolved. _“The one in the black mask?”_

Is that why his eyes were so full of rage that looked so much like Ren’s right down to its cage? Is that why Ren was so drawn to him? Is that why, as soon as Ren’s eyes met Akechi’s in that hallway, his heart thumped with recognition, with the possessive feeling that this was someone he needed to catch, to unravel, to _know_?

Ryuji nudged Ren’s arm; a poll had appeared on the board behind the set. _Do you think the Phantom Thieves are real?_

Ren pressed the button for ‘yes’ like it was the trigger of his gun.

“About 30% or so? What are your thoughts, Akechi-kun?” the male host raised an exaggerated eyebrow.

A small smirk pulled at Akechi’s lips before he caught it, stretched it into that fake plastic smile Ren was coming to recognize as a disguise. “I’d love to hear some more detailed opinions on the Phantom Thieves’ actions.” 

Ren had to hold back his laughter as he put Akechi’s plan together. 

_Bring it on, Detective_.

The female host picked up a long-corded microphone and strode down the aisle, pretending to scan the crowd as she made her way towards Ren. Just as he expected, she stopped directly in front of him, thrust the microphone towards his face as a sudden spotlight descended over their heads. 

“All right, let’s try asking this student here,” she trilled, as Akechi’s eyes burned into Ren from the stage. “Hypothetically speaking, what are your thoughts on these Phantom Thieves?”

Ren leaned towards the microphone without hesitating. Something about the way Akechi was looking at him made him want to be dangerously honest and a little flirtatious, stirred up everything he needed to make his first move of their game. 

“They do more than the cops,” he said with a shrug, looking past the anchor to grin directly at Akechi. 

Akechi squirmed in his seat for a microscopic moment before bursting into an infuriatingly cute, small giggle. Once he laughed, the audience did, too. 

“This goes completely against the opinion you had about them being tried by law, Akechi-kun!” the male host exclaimed.

“Indeed,” Akechi agreed, winking at Ren like he wasn’t on a _goddamn television broadcast_ , “It’s rather intriguing to hear such a strong acknowledgement. In that case, there’s one more question I’d like to ask.”

Ren nodded as the microphone was pushed at him once more.

“If someone close to you, for example, your friend next to you--” Akechi glanced at Ryuji with what Ren swore was disdain, “If his heart suddenly changed, wouldn’t you think that was the work of the Phantom Thieves?”

 _Trick question_ , Ren thought. _You’re clever, Detective, but so am I_.

He coated his voice in sugar, passed his reply through a satisfied smile. “What would you think, Akechi-kun?” 

_God, this is fun_.

“Ah, throwing the question back at me!” Akechi widened his eyes in what Ren recognized as mock surprise, before turning away to face the camera again.

“Where did that come from?!” Morgana hissed; Ren pushed his bag further under the chair to silence him.

“Whether the Thieves’ actions are good or not, I feel there is a more important issue at hand.” Akechi said, adding a warble in his voice as the anchor returned to her seat. “The matter of how they change people’s hearts. If they honestly possess that ability, it could be used for more than extracting confessions. It could be that what seem to be ordinary crimes are actually being perpetrated by these methods.”

“Bullshit,” Ann muttered under her breath in a rare moment of vulgarity.

Akechi’s eyes suddenly brightened, like he was about to share some juicy tidbit of gossip. “To be honest, I’m already working alongside the police to help sort out this matter.” 

“Fuck that,” Ryuji cursed a little too loudly. 

The interview concluded with some more pleasantries and thunderous applause from the audience, but Ren was too lost in thought to clap. Gone was the calmness he’d managed to maintain while they played, replaced with jagged, staccato vibrations pounding against the underside of his skin-- 

“Oh, it’s you!” 

Ren snapped to attention; Ann and Ryuji were gone and in their place was Akechi, standing in front of him with a look on his face like he’d won the lottery. “I’m glad I found you. I wanted to thank you in person.”

Ren met his eyes and faked a touch of modesty. “I’m not sure any thanks are in order.”

“Nonsense.” Akechi shook his head. “To paraphrase Hegel, advancement cannot occur without both thesis and antithesis.” 

“Synthesis,” Ren corrected, never more grateful for that book on social thought he'd found in the Leblanc attic.

“Hm?”

Ren flashed a sweetly pompous smile. “Hegel actually calls it synthesis, not advancement.” 

“My apologies,” Akechi said, dropping his gaze from Ren’s eyes to his ribs to his thighs. “What I mean is that our discussion was quite meaningful. Few people around me are so willing to speak their minds as freely as you did earlier.” 

_Oh_. Ren could certainly work with _that_.

He stretched an arm up behind his ear and raked his hand through his hair. “I’m not so easily intimidated by a pretty face. Even one as pretty as yours, _Detective_.” 

_Your move_. 

“You’re one to talk,” Akechi countered, trailing off and waiting for Ren to fill in his name. Ren wondered if he already knew it. 

“Amamiya,” he conceded, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Ren Amamiya.” 

“Amamiya-kun.” Akechi repeated, smiling his TV smile. “Well, Amamiya-kun, if you’ll indulge me a moment longer? I think it’s quite possible this group is as you believe, and they’re truly acting with good intentions.”

Ren let a bite of venom sneak into his voice. “Hypothetically, of course.” 

“Of course. I assume their hearts must be burning with a sense of _justice_ and _duty_ ”--Akechi spat the words like they were bitter on his tongue--”but that justice is merely a facade. I believe if a truly powerful opponent were to corner them, they would flee without a second thought.” 

_Like the police, Detective? Like you?_

Ren shook his head without breaking eye contact. “They wouldn’t run.”

“You really are intriguing,” Akechi said, taking another step closer to Ren. “I bet you’d make for a worthwhile debate partner on the subject.”

Ren looked at Akechi with a purposefully blank gaze, letting Akechi fill in whatever he needed to keep the exchange going. “I make for a lot of things.” 

“Is that so?” Akechi came even closer. “Would you continue sharing your thoughts with me?”

“I’d love to.”

Akechi held a gloved hand out for a handshake, and the card-shaped hollow in Ren’s chest sparked with the first link of their bond, while something else entirely swept the muscles in his abdomen. For a moment, Arsène stirred, scraping his claws along the undersides of Ren’s collarbones just long enough to tell Ren he was watching, before fading back into his purgatory. 

“We should exchange contact info,” Akechi said at last. 

Ren took out his phone, then hesitated a moment, letting his own eyes flick down the buttons of Akechi’s jacket. “You want my number, Detective? A guy could get the wrong idea.”

“Who says that idea would be wrong?” Akechi tapped his phone to Ren’s. “I hope to see you again, Amamiya-kun.”

Ren let out a sharp exhale as he watched Akechi walk away.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Morgana hissed, poking his face out of Ren’s schoolbag. “To think that the leader of the Phantom Thieves was just _openly flirting with a detective--_ ”

“Two cans of tuna for you to never bring this up again.”

“Hell no! My silence can’t be bought that cheaply.”

“Name your goddamn price then,” Ren snapped. “And hurry up, because I think that’s Ryuji coming back and I do not want to talk to him about this.”

“I suppose some fatty tuna would keep me quiet until later tonight,” Morgana squeaked out as Ryuji sprinted over.

***

Sojiro was gone for the evening when Ren and Morgana made it back to Leblanc. Listening to Ryuji bitch about Akechi in-between shovelfuls of sushi had left Ren jittery, anxious, and entirely unprepared for the interrogation he was about to face.

“Explain yourself,” Morgana demanded, angrily enough to make Ren question if he’d figured things out after all. 

Ren couldn’t handle any more talking without coffee, so he ignored the demand, put on the kettle and grabbed the fresh shipment of Brazilian Bourbon beans that Sojiro had tried to hide from him on the top shelf. 

Morgana was not amused. “Seriously? You are aware that coffee contains caffeine, yes? Did you ever think you might sleep better if you didn’t drink it at night?”

Ren measured out 21g of beans and started twisting the grinder. “Nope.” 

“Maybe you should.”

“Don’t you take away my coffee, Morgana. I have precious few joys in life.”

“That’s dark.”

“No, this is a light roast, actually-- ow!” Ren yelped as Morgana scratched him.

“Fine. Drink your coffee, ruin your sleep. See if I care.”

Ren emptied the grinder and retrieved the kettle, rolling his wrist as he poured the steaming water in slow figure-eights. “You care very much about my sleep, Morgana. Don’t lie to me.”

“Start talking, damnit,” Morgana hissed, not taking the bait. “About that Akechi.” 

“He seems like he knows more than he’s letting on,” Ren said cautiously. “If he’s investigating us, we need to make sure we’re one step ahead.”

Morgana cocked his head. “You’re thinking he could be a source of intel if you get close to him, right?”

Ren nodded.

“Ordinarily I’d agree with you,” Morgana said, skulking closer, “But are you even capable of gathering intel while drooling over him?”

Ren’s arm spasmed, splashing hot water over the counter. “ _That’s_ your concern?!” 

“I’m not blind!” Morgana shrieked, dodging the spray. “He looked ready to devour you and you looked ready to let him.”

“Sounds like fun to me,” Ren grinned, ruffling Morgana’s fur with his free hand. 

“You’re even more hopeless than I thought,” Morgana moaned, flopping melodramatically onto the counter, back paws narrowly missing Ren’s mug. “I suppose there’s no accounting for taste. But you better be careful, got it?”

Ren seethed as the word bruised across his stomach.

Careful. Right.

Careful like when he took hit after hit from the strongest shadows, to keep them from hurting his friends. Careful like when he insisted Morgana and Ann heal Ryuji and Yusuke over and over instead of ever healing him. Careful like when he took Takemi’s sketchy clinical trial drugs in exchange for their safe room IVs; careful like when he bought their legally-grey model guns from a possibly-yakuza-owned shop in a back alley--

“I’m always careful,” he said, picking up his cup and slumping into one of Leblanc’s booths. “Now can I clear my head for a few minutes before we go to sleep?” 

Morgana sighed, and jumped down from the counter towards the stairs. “Fine. I suppose you have earned a moment of respite. Only because that sushi was pretty decent!” 

“You’re back to canned cat food tomorrow.”

Ren watched as Morgana climbed up the stairs, listened for the telltale _thunk_ as he jumped from the floor onto Ren’s thin mattress, and pulled out the phone that had been buzzing for the past few minutes in his pocket. 

_It’s not going to be him.  
It’s not going to be him It’s not going to be himit’snotgoingtobehim--_

**New Direct Message from Goro Akechi**

Ren grabbed his coffee cup and held it for a solid minute, letting the heat of the brew sink through the ceramic until his palms were pink and tingling. 

**Direct Message between Ren Amamiya and Goro Akechi**  
>>Goro: Hello, Amamiya-kun. I hope I’m not bothering you messaging so late at night.  
>>Goro: I just wanted to thank you again. I’ve never had so much fun at a taping.  
>>Goro: I wish your class could come visit all my speaking engagements!  
>>Ren: will all your producers let you debate me on air?  
>>Goro: I admit, I wanted to make sure it was you I got to speak with today.  
>>Goro: Those particular hosts often pull that stunt when a class visits the station, so I figured there was no harm in asking to pick my conversation partner this time.  
>>Goro: I’m glad I did. You really are intriguing.  
>>Ren: hmm. and what exactly about me intrigues you, i wonder?  
>>Goro: Who’s to say?  
>>Ren: i have ways of making you talk  
>>Goro: Mm, do you? I assure you I can endure quite a lot.  
>>Goro: By the way, did I wake you? I’m often up quite late, but I realize most don’t keep my hours.  
>>Ren: i’m usually up late too  
>>Ren Amamiya sent a photo: nightcoffee.jpg  
>>Goro: That looks delicious! Coffee at this time of night, though?  
>>Ren: always  
>>Goro: Well, if you’d ever like to chat while you drink your coffee, you can always message me.  
>>Goro: I enjoy talking to you.  
>>Ren: maybe i’ll take you up on that sometime  
>>Goro: I hope you will.  
>>Goro: But perhaps we should try to get some sleep for tonight.  
>>Goro: Goodnight, Amamiya-kun.


	3. falling

“Hey! Hey! Are you listening?” Morgana headbutted Ren as they emerged from Aoyama-Itchome station.

Ren was not listening; he was internally debating whether he wanted water or a canned coffee before heading to class, pulling at loose strings in his pockets to keep from checking his texts again. The cartwheeling thrill he’d fallen asleep cradling had grown into a cyclonic consumption, clingy and delusional. The way he’d grabbed for his phone immediately after waking up, hoping for something as pathetic and fictional as a good morning text from the person who was actively trying to arrest him, was nothing short of ridiculous. Laughable. _Pathetic_.

It wasn't like Akechi had woken up expecting one, Ren taunted himself. Wasn't like Akechi woke up thinking about Ren at all. Even if he was interested in him -- was _after_ him, was chasing him in the Metaverse like a predator chases prey, what Ren felt was his alone, something mystical, as otherworldly as stealing hearts and infiltrating palaces. No one sensed bonds like Ren did, if Igor was to be believed; no one else could feel connections to others in such a tangible, physical way. Most people weren’t _empty_ like Ren was. Most people were too numb to the constant sensations of their subconscious to feel every strain and pull of their bonds, like only a wild card with an empty-barreled soul could. 

Unless--

 _No_.

He had to snap out of this. Whatever truths were hidden in Akechi’s secrets, they were to investigate, to fear--

“I can’t believe we were on TV yesterday with Akechi-kun!” one of the girls in front of Ren exclaimed. Morgana’s ears perked up against the side of his neck. 

“I hear he’s an orphan who grew up poor,” her friend offered.

“See, I heard his dad’s the head of some big financial conglomerate,” the first girl countered. “I love that he hates the media. Makes me believe he doesn’t do this for the fame. People say he’s so good, he’s made enemies in the police force--” 

_Hates the media, huh?_ Ren thought as he ducked into the vending machine alcove by the school, finding his coffee-vs-water debate settled by the out-of-order sign on the Starvicks machine. He bought an Udagawa water and considered the gossip, recalling the burning pique in Akechi’s eyes while he smiled at the anchors on set. 

In reality, the connection Ren felt to Akechi was woven entirely of feelings, threadbare of facts; Ren hadn’t really stopped to consider Akechi’s non-Metaversian background since their meeting. How had a high schooler become a private investigator? Why had Akechi chosen to pursue such a time-consuming and challenging profession in addition to school? Why did he hate the Phantom Thieves? The media? What didn’t he hate? What did he want? The only thing Ren truly knew about Akechi was that he could hear Morgana, and _that_ wasn't knowledge at all, just a messy accretion of mysteries, a battery of questions without a single answer.

Morgana clambered onto Ren’s shoulders, tail flicking against his neck. “So there’s conflicting stories about Akechi’s past, huh?” 

“He could be hiding something,” Ren said as he leaned against the wall, the irony leaving a greasy film behind on his lips. Surely it wasn’t supposed to be that easy to drip half-truths and lies by omission into conversations between close confidants. 

Surely it was supposed to feel more wrong to lie. 

“True. Celebrities hide lots of things about themselves. Anything that doesn’t fit their image,” Morgana agreed, still disconcertingly oblivious. “So what, you’re going to investigate and blackmail the detective?”

“Of course not,” Ren retorted. “But if he asks me ou-- I mean, if we ever do hang out, you never know where the conversation could go. We might learn something important.”

Morgana heaved a pointed sigh. “Your _extremely_ questionable intentions aside, it’s true that Akechi is suspicious--” 

“Yo! What’s bonkin’? What’re we talkin’ about?” Ryuji bounded into the alcove with Ann close behind, throwing his arm around Ren’s shoulder and knocking Morgana to the ground.

“Hey, be careful!” Ann chastised, pushing back against Ren’s other side. 

“Ren and I just overheard an interesting conversation about that ace detective.” Morgana leapt atop the vending machine with a huff. “Tell them.”

Ren dutifully relayed the gossip; Ryuji rewarded him by stealing his water and finishing it in one glug, oblivious to the glower Ren beamed at the empty bottle in his hand. “Which one d’you think’s the truth?”

“He doesn’t ever post about his family online,” Ann said. “Isn’t that kind of strange?”

“You follow him? The hell?” Ryuji swiped Ann’s phone and started scrolling her feed. “Ooh, who’s that? She’s _fine_.”

Ann glared as she yanked the phone back, held it out of Ryuji’s reach and pulled up Akechi’s profile. “Look. He never posts anything personal. Just food and the occasional pretty landscape.”

“And his stupid face every other photo,” Ryuji grumbled. “Why do those posts get the most likes?”

Ren shifted against the unforgiving steel of the vending machine, stared at the ground as Morgana batted his hair, claws-out.

Ann typed quietly for a couple moments. “Even searching ‘Goro Akechi family’ or ‘Goro Akechi parents’ doesn’t come back with anything. Usually idols have basic information like that officially released.” 

“He ain’t a goddamn idol!”

Ann groaned. “You know what I mean, Ryuji.” 

**Direct Message between Ren Amamiya and Goro Akechi**  
>>Ren: hello detective-kun  
>>Ren: thought you should know you’re the subject of some gossip at shujin  
>>Goro: I see. I didn’t take you for the gossiping sort.  
>>Ren: mmm, so you don’t want to know?  
>>Goro: I suppose since you’ve already messaged me, you may as well share.  
>>Goro: Or actually, why don’t you let me guess?  
>>Ren: by all means  
>>Goro: I read recently that I’m the son of a financial conglomerate executive, but that I don’t want his reputation to overshadow my career. I think I might have also been distantly related to European royalty?  
>>Goro: Then again, I also read that I’m an orphan who grew up in poverty, although they didn’t bother to explain how I passed a police background check with my alleged lack of koseki. You’d think they’d at least flesh out the story, no?  
>>Ren: two for two. except i’m pretty sure you made up that european royalty bit yourself  
>>Goro: I did no such thing.  
>>Ren: so what’s my reward for keeping you informed?  
>>Goro: Why would I reward you for sharing gossip I already knew?  
>>Ren: because you think i’m cute?  
>>Ren: also, which story is true?  
>>Goro: Haha, is this an interrogation now?  
>>Ren: maybe.  
>>Goro: I see. I must say, I thought you’d be the type to look beyond petty gossip.  
>>Goro: Perhaps I misjudged you?  
>>Ren: nah, i don’t think you did  
>>Ren: and you’re still dodging my questions  
>>Goro: Successfully, it seems. Perhaps I deserve a reward more than you do. 

***

After school, the Thieves invited themselves over to Leblanc for coffee and a meal, and Morgana invited Yusuke to spend the night for the foreseeable future. Ren stayed quiet, did his very best impression of being completely fine and totally calm as he wiped down the dust from the portable stove, oiled Sojiro’s old donabe, and waited for his friends to get back from the store. Having them in the cafe was one thing--everyone making small talk while drinking coffee felt nice, even--but his little loft was another matter entirely. 

The truth was that Ren felt more at home crossing the creaky floorboards of his temporary attic dwelling than he ever had in his hometown bedroom, and that terrified him. Bewildered him. Could a crumbling garret with a mattress on a rickety wooden crate-frame really be called a home? Was a stuffy, dusty storage unit that smelled like coffee and spices and smoke even _allowed_ to be his home? 

But it was the only place Ren had ever been able to make his own. Sojiro might not have opened up his house, but he carved a nook out of his livelihood, gave it to Ren, and then stayed out of it, like that was just something people _did_. He invited Ren behind the counter of Leblanc, threw him an apron and taught him to brew coffee and make curry like he was an apprentice instead of a burden, like it wasn’t a big deal to quietly trust someone like Ren with a piece of his life. A river of secrets ran between them, but so far, Sojiro hadn’t forced him to ford it; he just let Ren be without trying to mold him or fix him. His parents never afforded him that courtesy, that privacy, that respect. No one with power ever did.

Albeit slowly, unevenly, cautiously, Ren had managed to settle into Leblanc. It had been unnerving enough to let Morgana share his space, to accept one pair of eyes on him as he did his homework and played his retro games; inviting in the rest of the Thieves in all at once was panic-inducing. People could break things. People could _see_ things. The loft was sparse, but it wasn’t bare, it wasn’t sterile; if anyone looked too closely, they might notice the rumpled blankets from Ren’s sleepless nights, the cracks and stains from spills of anger, the fragments of masks that lurked in his boxes and on his shelves--

“Yusuke tried to sneak porridge into the basket, but you know I made him put that shit back, Renren!” Ryuji called, tossing a bag of fresh udon at Ren from the top of the stairs.

“What you did was make a scene,” Ann snapped, buckling under a heavy handful of shopping bags. “It was so embarrassing.” 

Yusuke was the last one to return, clutching at his chest like he was in pain. “I’ve never questioned a decision of yours before, Leader, but really, udon over porridge?” 

Ren ignored him, tried to swallow his anxiety without it lodging in his throat, tossed the udon between his hands and steadied his voice. “Want me to make the hot pot?”

“Nah, leave it to me!” Ann said with a grin, holding a pair of cooking chopsticks high in the air. 

Ren hovered behind her as she set up and started working, focusing on playing sous chef like he did with Sojiro so he couldn’t follow Ryuji and Yusuke’s roving eyes around his room. He sliced a stack of leeks into sharp rings, diced blocks of tofu into fat squares, and rolled thin slices of pork and beef onto trays as the attic filled with the sweet, humid steam of the broth.

“Thank you for the food!” Ryuji shouted as they gathered around the folding table; Ren held up his phone as Ann swished the first pieces of meat, racing to snap a shot before his lens and glasses fogged. 

A few bites in, Ren felt the telltale buzzing of a text from his pocket. Everyone was distracted by the delicious meal--even Morgana, who was badgering Ann to cook him another piece of beef--so Ren cautiously pulled out his phone. It wasn’t Akechi, but Mishima, badgering him about going on a double date with some girls he met online. Ren wasn’t really the online dating type, so he quickly declined. Still, since he already had the phone out, it couldn’t _hurt_ to text Akechi, see if he could get another conversation going. Ren considered sending the photo of the hot pot, maybe, using it as a segue into all those hovering questions about Akechi’s background and family. It wouldn’t be as good as an in-person conversation, but it’d be something. Even if all Akechi let slip was some made-for-TV morsel, Ren could--

“Oooh, that look on your face! You textin’ a girl?” Ryuji reached towards Ren’s phone. “She hot? Got a photo?” 

Ren hastily stuffed the phone back in his pocket. “Not texting a girl.”

“A boy, then?” Yusuke asked.

Ren felt a treasonous heat scrambling across his cheeks. “I’m not texting anyone.”

Ann leaned over and punched Ren’s shoulder. “Hey, we’re all single here! No shame.” 

Morgana sighed, eyes fluttering. “Lady Ann’s single--” 

“I have no time for a partner.” Yusuke smiled to himself as he plucked another bite of tofu. “I’m in a committed relationship with my art.”

Ryuji threw his head in his hands, sending his chopsticks clattering onto the table. “And you’re _happy about that?_ ”

As the evening passed, something in the softness of the waning steam lulled their conversation towards more serious realms; Ren was awed and humbled by how vulnerable and open his friends could be. Ryuji leaned back and shared the scars from his father, gaze wide, arms open; Ann’s eyes filled with tears but didn’t close as she talked about watching her best friend try to die. Ren considered for the seventieth time that day if silently chasing after Akechi really was the right choice -- but something about their raw-hearted honesty stoked the flames in his gut, assuaged his choice instead of urging him to change it. 

There was a difference between truth and honesty. The Phantom Thieves fought for truth, to uncover society’s ills and individuals’ warped cognitions. But their missions were carried out under the cover of the Metaverse’s darkness, beneath the veils of their own secrets, and sometimes Ren worried that was because of him. Because even as he sought truth, at his blue-flamed core, he wasn’t _honest_ at all. Not like his friends -- even with their faces masked, the rest of the Thieves all fought with their hearts on display, while Ren collected the distorted desires they battled and donned them, cruelly and without remorse, whenever they served the team. Whenever they served _him_. Igor called it the power of the trickster, but Ren called it being a liar. What other word was there for sculpting all of his feelings from a clay of anger and loneliness? For burying the rageful verity that birthed and fed Arsène? For hunting that same fury like a trophy when he sensed it in someone else?

Because _god_ , there was something so achingly familiar in the potential of his bond with Akechi; beneath that pretty, princely mask was a heart as angry and closed-off and _certain_ as Ren’s. It made Ren’s temper swell behind his sternum, turned his veins to molten bronze and thrummed his pulse with steam. 

He could never articulate that to anyone honest--

“Well, when it comes to gettin’ labeled, nobody’s got it worse than you,” Ryuji said, as the oxygen in Ren’s lungs turned to acid. 

“We never have heard the details,” Morgana, the fucking traitor, added with a nod of his head. 

Ren squirmed in his chair, searching for a corner to land his gaze where an expectant set of eyes wasn’t lurking. 

“The details don’t matter,” he protested, more for himself than for his friends, a last-ditch attempt to purge the bitter strop sizzling across his tongue. But he couldn’t -- Leblanc was already fading away, Ren was already standing on the nondescript exurban block with its dark facades and glowing windows, caged in the headlights of the fancy-looking car. He was staring again at the shaking woman, unprepared--as always--to face off against the disgusting man that was about to snap his future in two.

“Even if you think that, tell us anyway?” Ann’s voice was wrapped in gauze as it brushed against his ears. 

Ren nodded, tried to focus on the steady hum of his friendships inside his heart and not the pounding in its chambers, not the shakiness in his limbs and the scathing dash of red behind his eyelids. 

“I didn’t assault anyone,” he said. _Even though I wanted to_.

“Of course you didn’t, dude,” Ryuji said, giving Ren a shove that was just rough enough to tether him. Ren grabbed hold of its playful reassurance and spread it flat, tried to stand on its back instead of his hometown street as he spoke again. 

“I was walking in my neighborhood when I saw a man being rough with a woman. Yelling at her, trying to shove her into his car. I thought to myself: she’s in danger, I have to save her. So I ran up to them, and the guy was so drunk, he fell over and cracked his damn forehead. He started shouting about having me arrested, and forced the woman to agree to incriminate me, too.” 

_God, I wanted to hurt him._

Ren paused, hoping his friends would interject again and spare him from telling the rest of the story, but everyone stayed silent. 

“They arrested me on the spot and let him go. I was convicted and sentenced to probation. School kicked me out and my parents sent me here to repeat second year. There’s not much else to the story.” Ren forced a shrug, smashed a neutral expression against his face, tried to gulp down the sharper fragments he’d trapped against the backs of his teeth-- 

_Just a livid, terrified, bruised-up teenager who couldn’t punch back with handcuffs on, couldn’t punch back in the detainment cell, couldn’t punch back for the twenty goddamn days they took to get their backroom deal all drawn up before the indictment--_

“Just listenin’ to it pisses me off!” Ryuji slammed his fist into the folding table, jostling the pot. “Goddamnit! You got an assault on your record just for that?”

Yusuke’s lips were drawn in a thin line. “The woman sounds quite horrible as well. She’s stayed quiet this whole time.”

“She’s probably scared,” Ann murmured.

Morgana’s fur bristled up and down his back. “That man is just the kind of person whose heart we should steal! Who is he, and where can we find him?” 

“I don’t know. It was pretty dark.” Ren stood and started gathering the trash scattered around his room from their meal. He couldn’t stand looking at the pity on their faces.

***

It was Monday morning and Ren was running very late; he’d fallen asleep late, woken up late, refused to skip his coffee and spilled it across the counter, making him _even more fucking late_. Yusuke had moved back into his dorm on Sunday, sneaking out after hanging _Sayuri_ on Leblanc’s wall while Ren spent the morning in the Velvet Room. It was better that way; Ren hadn’t fallen asleep until sunrise, too afraid he’d wake up screaming with someone other than Morgana there to hear him--

“Fancy meeting you here,” a genial voice rang out from behind Ren on the busy Ginza line platform. 

Ren turned to face Akechi as a train rumbled past the track. “On your way to school, Detective-kun?”

Akechi shook his head. “I have a taping. I guess Shujin’s in this direction, too. Still, I wouldn’t have expected to run into you. Perhaps it really is fate.” 

“Fate, huh?” Ren tugged on a loose curl, leaned a little closer to Akechi than was socially acceptable. “Do you say that to every guy you bump into on the subway, or just me?”

“Just you.” Akechi tilted his head and winked, not pulling away. “How are you doing?”

 _He’s going to kill me with those fucking winks_ , Ren thought, skating his bleary gaze across Akechi’s face. “I’m sleepy.” 

Akechi frowned; his eyes narrowed like he was suspicious more than interested. “Did you stay up too late? Are you all right?”

“I’m just professionally bad at sleeping,” Ren said with a shrug. 

_You didn’t miss any palace infiltrations. Don’t worry._

Akechi stared blankly for a moment before remembering to smile. “Ah. I do like that response. It’s honest, and it keeps the conversation from dragging.”

Ren had imagined quite a few conversations with Akechi, but one spent analyzing Ren’s choice of words, _out loud_ , treated as normally as discussing schoolwork and the weather, was not among them. 

It was extremely weird and strangely refreshing.

Ren grinned. “Are you evaluating my conversation skills, Akechi?”

“Ah,” Akechi said again, bemusedly. “I’ve been getting interviewed more lately, so I’ve been wondering how to answer such questions. I suppose it is best to simply be yourself and say what you think. You’ve given me much to consider.”

“I have? Is that not something you usually do? Am I even talking to the real Goro Akechi right now?” Ren teased, ignoring the bitterness prickling over his tongue. 

_Of course I’m not_.

Akechi’s eyes lit up, setting Ren’s breath ablaze. “You wouldn’t know, would you? We’ve only recently made each other’s acquaintance, after all.”

“I guess the same goes for me, then. What might I be hiding underneath this flirtatious persona?” Ren dropped the word like a bomb and watched for signs of recognition.

Instead, Akechi laughed, short and soft, before covering his mouth with his hand. “So you have been flirting with me.”

Ren bit his lower lip. “You started it.”

“I suppose I did.” Akechi glanced at the platform as a train rolled in. “Let’s get going, shall we? My publicist will be upset if I’m late.” 

They got separated upon boarding, the amorphous crush of rush hour consuming every square of the car until the train doors could barely close. Ren leaned against the wall and braced against the curves of the track, reeling, smiling all the way to his stop. There was that smoldering feeling again, infiltrating the the pulse of his muscles and the stalwart tension of his limbs, the oily sheen of a burgeoning bond--

“You have _got_ to be kidding me,” Morgana grumbled from inside his bag as they threaded their way to the exit.

Ren picked up his pace as soon as they were above ground, still grinning. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”


	4. budding rivalry

Ren was really fucking sick of being blackmailed. 

His hometown cops stained his record with false charges. Kamoshida held an expulsion over his head for a fortnight just because he could. Madarame made preparations to sue; even Yusuke had tried his hand at coercion. Everyone felt entitled to his future; everyone found him expendable against their own fears and their own feelings. And the latest to dangle his life on a string was Niijima, the student council president who’d been following the Thieves around school and town for weeks. Ren blamed himself. They’d laughed as she scuttled behind them, upside-down manga pressed against her chin; they’d rolled their eyes, wrote her off as juvenile and pathetic, pumped themselves up on blustering arrogance that meant goddamn nothing once she got her hands on their secret. 

But her blackmail itself? It was vexating, yes, but underneath that, it was almost _boring_ ; a dull thud that bruised but didn’t swell, didn’t make Ren cry out or flinch. Wasn’t he supposed to be afraid? Supposed to tremble and quake at the latest bounty on his head? 

Instead, there was another sensation stirring, deep in the vessels that pumped blood to his bonds. It was muffled under the drumbeat of his pulse, faint but persistent: another thin ribbon, tangling up with the rest of the Thieves’ and unfurling towards Niijima. It was a quiet insistence, more like Ann’s and Yusuke’s than Akechi’s, but it was there, despite the way she’d chosen to force their hand--

“Ren? Are you coming?” Ann called from the top of Bikkuri Boy’s stairs. 

He shook his head, tried to scatter his thoughts across the sidewalk, and sprinted up the steps as neutrality snapped across his face. He wasn’t supposed to show his frustration; he was supposed to make space for theirs. 

Ren usually found the restaurant’s gentle din soothing, a backdrop into which the Thieves could safely blend without standing out, but that day, it was harsh against his ears. He slid into the corner of their usual booth and immediately pressed the button to call the waitress, hoping that would keep the conversation paused until he had a cup of shitty diner coffee in his hands. They took the hint, and the waitress came quickly; Ann and Yusuke ordered teas while Ryuji opted for soda, and everyone stayed quiet until the drinks were delivered. 

The coffee was thin and over-roasted, but Ren drank it anyway, slurp by scalding slurp until his tongue had turned to sandpaper. His friends quickly cycled through a round of bickering before falling, backs to the wall, against the facts: they had no choice but to accept Niijima’s terms. Morgana launched into a lengthy pep talk; Ren almost envied how easily he could pour optimism and hope into his voice. The rest of the Thieves were enamored, leaning forward with their chins in their hands, while Ren stared down at the sticky floor beneath their booth, wondering how his coffee had gone cold so damn quickly. Had they simply microwaved water with instant granules? Revolting. An insult to coffee-- 

It came down to this: Niijima had some hidden motivations of her own: hidden motivations that resonated with Ren’s anger as much as they triggered it. The Thieves’ justice was borne of shadows, borne against the rotten unconscious desires that poisoned the bloodstream of society. Ren thought that justice spoke for itself, didn’t think he should have to prove it to anyone, like Niijima had demanded they do, but even as that confidence thumped in his chest, there was a part of him that remembered how, when his throat sang with Arsène’s scream, it gave voice to fear alongside fury and freedom. 

Akechi’s words echoed in his mind: _Their hearts must be burning with a sense of justice and duty, but that justice is merely a facade._ He was wrong about the Thieves--their justice was no facade--but he wasn’t wrong about justice itself, not completely. Nothing was exempt from being worn as a mask. Niijima’s decision to seek the truth before sinking her trust into the shadows wasn’t as unreasonable a choice as Ren wished it to be-- 

“We doin’ this?” Ryuji nudged, and Ren realized Morgana had fallen silent.

Everyone was waiting for him to give the order; Ren spun his mug in awkward ovals, watched the sludge swirl into a vortex against the stained porcelain. 

“We have to,” he said, creases smoothed from his voice. 

Everyone murmured their agreement as a determined hush settled over the table.

***

Ren stood, again, at the base of the Bikkuri Boy stairs, waving as his friends walked as a group towards the subway. Once they disappeared into the evening crowds, he turned around, ducked into Taiheido Bookstore and rifled through the stacks of new arrivals, more to release the nervous energy pooled in his fingertips than to browse. 

“You’ve bought all these already,” Morgana whined as Ren flicked over each spine. “Have you even read them yet? Maybe you should read the books you buy before buying more.”

“I’d finish more books if someone didn’t demand that I go to bed as soon as I start reading,” Ren snapped, barely resisting the urge to grab a paperback from the stack in defiance; instead, he moved on to the case of magazines. Akechi’s grinning face stared up at him from the middle rack, chin perched in the crook of his thumb and forefinger, eyes wide and vacant. _Detective Prince Tells All!_ declared the bright-red headline.

“I highly doubt that,” Ren grumbled, but he picked up the magazine and carried it to the cashier anyway. A quick stop at Triple 7 and a hasty walk to Station Square later, he was perched in the quiet alcove behind the smokers’ canopy, drinking a hot canned coffee and thumbing through the glossy pages, ignoring the disapproval radiating from Morgana’s glare.

The interview he’d given was predictably shallow, full of non-answers about his hobbies and his tastes in food and women; there were a few emphatic statements about the Phantom Thieves, but nothing Ren hadn’t heard him say out loud. Even so, it piqued Ren’s curiosity: Akechi as captured by the written word was different from Akechi in the frame of a camera, from Akechi smiling and preening on a television studio’s stage. It made Ren wonder if he stuck to filmed appearances on purpose. It was easier to maintain control of his words; studios could edit the order of his sentences, but they couldn’t change his tone or the emphasis he placed on particular syllables and phrases, couldn’t easily decouple his smiles from his sentences.

When the coffee can was drained, and the magazine’s subject changed from Akechi to nightlife hotspots around Tokyo, Ren tucked them both away in his bag and headed into the station. 

“Uh, hello?” Morgana batted Ren on the shoulder. “The Den-en-Toshi line is that way?”

Ren tapped his Suica on the Inogami line gate and stepped through to the platform. “I’m aware.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“No.” Ren got in line for the train behind some already-sloshed salarymen, ignoring the telltale sound of cat claws scratching over magazine paper until Morgana curled up in resignation.

“Fine. Are we going to Kichijoji? Ooh, let’s go buy that special katsu!”

“It’s going to be sold out again,” Ren said with a shrug. “But I’ll try.” 

It was raining when they arrived in Kichijoji -- not a torrential downpour like when Ren had visited alone, but still heavy enough that the streets were full of puddles. Ren sprinted to Harmony Alley and shook his head like a dog, sending droplets flying from his hair. The area was surprisingly lively for a stormy weeknight; patrons spilled from the tiny bars and into the dead-ends and alleys, voices melting into the patter of rain on the walkway’s tin roof. 

The tired looking clerk held up a hand as soon as Ren began to approach Hagomoro.

“Sorry, we just sold our last one,” he called. “Try another night.”

“Told you,” Ren said as Morgana huffed in disapproval. 

They walked a zigzag pattern through the yokocho as Ren searched for a spot of refuge. He didn’t want to repeat the nikuman-and-Retro-Alley routine with Morgana. The more Ren's mind replayed the memory, the more certain he was he’d stumbled onto something precious, a maskless Akechi he wasn’t meant to have seen. Whether or not the memory was real or a trick of Ren’s desire, maybe-Akechi’s coarse tongue cursing the rain was a secret Ren didn’t want to share--

“Hey, isn’t that one of your teachers?” Morgana nosed Ren’s head in the direction of one of the bars. 

Ren squinted past the bartender, staring first at the simmering pot of oden before spotting Hiruta-sensei amongst the patrons. “I heard some students met with Goro Akechi himself on that field trip,” he said, leaning into his companion’s shoulder and sending little droplets of shochu flying from his overfilled glass. 

Ren’s face flushed. “Does he mean me?”

Morgana snickered. “He sounds jealous.” 

Hiruta held his free hand to his chest as he downed his drink. “With that razor-sharp intellect, and a dignity beyond his years, he truly is a paragon for them to aspire to. One day, I hope I can partake of that aura--” 

“Ugh, why is everyone in this city fawning over Akechi?” Morgana whined as Ren darted away from the bar, horrified and wishing he’d taken another route through the area. “Even your teachers! Honestly, people should be talking about the Phantom Thieves instead.”

“Quiet,” Ren hissed, freezing in place as he reached the entrance to the neighboring shopping street. 

Akechi was under the awning next to Penguin Sniper, leaning against the wall with his briefcase in one hand and his phone in the other. He wasn’t particularly inconspicuous, save for not wearing his trademark blazer, but the crowds were passing him by without a second glance, like he was just another guy waiting for the rain to blow over. 

“I’m surprised he’s not getting mobbed by fans,” Morgana said with a laugh. “C’mon, let’s get out of here before he sees us.”

“I think I'm going to go say hi.” 

“Seriously?” Morgana let out an exasperated groan as he jumped onto the pavement. “We’re dealing with a lot right now! That Niijima isn’t someone to underestimate. We can’t lose our focus.”

“And that’s exactly why I need to clear my head,” Ren countered. “I can’t think of a better way than trying to worm some Phantom Thieves info out of Akechi.”

_Especially since Niijima isn’t the only one who knows our secret_ , his guilty mind whispered against his gritted teeth.

“Right. _That’s_ what you want to do.”

“I can’t help it if my investigation leads to other things--”

“And _I_ can’t stomach listening to your painful attempts at flirting.” Morgana shook his head before looking up at Ren. “Be careful, got it? Come find me by the station when you’re ready to head home.” 

With that, he turned and disappeared into the crowd; Ren took a deep breath, felt a coiling mix of excitement and trepidation fill his chest, and stepped into the rain. 

“Amamiya-kun!” Akechi’s eyes widened as he approached. “I didn’t expect to see you around here. Do you live in Kichijoji?”

Ren ducked under the awning where Akechi was perched, leaned one shoulder into the wall and ran a hand through his damp hair. “No, I just like the area.” 

“I like it too,” Akechi said. “I was just thinking I wanted to talk to you. Do you want to go play billiards together?”

“Billiards?” Ren repeated.

It was an interesting choice: not an obvious date, like dinner or coffee, but neither was it innocent in its intentions. It was an open invitation to spar, a startlingly truthful admission from Akechi: _when I spend time with you, I’m playing a game--_

“It’s not that difficult, and we can chat and play at the same time. How about it?” Akechi looked at Ren with a smile that looked almost shy.

_Shy._

Ren nodded, matched the lying smile with one of his own as a wick of anger lit behind it. 

Akechi was underestimating him. 

Ren bet that sort of pseudo-blushing shyness worked really well on anchors at TV stations and peers at his school, maybe even on his colleagues at the police station. It was the kind of expression that was meant to be disarming, meant to offer its recipient a false sense of superiority while lowering their guard. It was exactly what Ren tried to do with the glasses on his face, with the polite tone he took with his teachers, with the exaggerated bow he’d offered the hometown judge when he brought down his gavel and sentenced him to probation. 

But performative shyness wasn’t going to fool Ren, not when Akechi had already proven himself brazen and confident by approaching him of his own volition in the hallway of the studio, when he’d all but called him out as a Phantom Thief while looking him up and down, when he’d flirted over text and winked on a crowded subway platform. For Akechi to feign shyness after all of that meant that he was mistaking Ren’s eagerness for naivete, his curiosity for innocence. And Ren was nothing if not a thief; he wouldn’t dare to leave such an opportunity unseized, not when the lustful, hungry desire for victory was bubbling up from the molten core of their bond. 

And _god_ , did Ren want his justice to triumph. He wanted to win, and he wanted to hear Akechi admit it, wanted to string it like a medal around his neck and watch it sparkle. _This_ was what the fire in his heart demanded, what it longed for, what it needed. What _he_ needed. Ren wouldn’t be satisfied until he pinned Akechi to the ground and ripped his mask off himself, until he saw the reflection of his own flames roaring in Akechi’s eyes--

“I’m glad I asked,” Akechi said as his smile widened, ditched its false shyness and glimmered with excitement instead. “I was a little worried you’d turn me down.”

“Who could say no when you look that cute, Detective?” Ren dipped his voice into Joker’s deeper tone.

Akechi pushed a hand against Ren’s shoulder, sending tendrils of heat curling over his limbs. “Stop calling me that.” 

Ren grinned again, but this time, it was genuine. “Detective, or cute?”

“Both, you shameless flirt,” Akechi chastised, but the glint in his eyes didn’t look like disapproval. “Well then, let’s get going. The place is right here.”

They walked up the stairs to Penguin Sniper; Akechi paid their entrance fee, casting a withering glare at Ren when he pulled out his wallet to contribute. “None of that. I invited you, remember?”

Ren strongly considered asking if that meant their little billiards game was a date, but held back. If he played this round right, he’d have plenty of chances to try that kind of teasing on future outings. For the time being, he had to focus on intel, had to draw out _something_ to report back to Morgana, to justify his time and keep the breadth of his intentions masked. 

“Do you like billiards?” Ren asked, leaning back against their table as Akechi set up the game.

Akechi shrugged. “It’s something I enjoy doing when I find myself with free time. I’ve been hoping to find someone to play against.” 

Ren feigned a pout. “I thought I was special. Do you have no friends?” 

He’d only meant it as a jest, but Akechi’s face darkened like he’d landed a hit. “Friends, hm? As in, people I’d actively choose to see in my free time? If that’s what you mean, then no, I suppose I don’t have many.” 

Ren’s mind swirled with the memories of years spent sitting alone at lunch and in his bedroom, of feeling eternally out of place and angry and empty, yearning for any sort of connection with no idea how to forge one. Before Ren came to Tokyo--before he awakened Arsène, before he dreamt of Igor and the Velvet Room--he hadn’t even known what having bonds with others felt like, let alone how to nurture and strengthen them. He’d never felt the care of a guardian like Sojiro, never felt the tight handshake of friendship before the Thieves. Was that loneliness part of what he recognized in Akechi? Was that why his heart thumped with recognition as much as attraction? 

For a moment, Ren imagined being caged under a spotlight, instead of within the shadows: the unblinking headlights of the drunken man’s car, the flashing lights of the police wagon, the unrelenting glares of their flashlights in his face-- 

“Now, let’s play a game,” Akechi interjected, dissolving the beams into the fluorescence of the lounge. “You’ve played before, correct?” 

Ren nodded, and Akechi turned away, bent over the table and sent the balls scattering across the baize. The 8-ball sailed directly into a pocket; Ren swore he saw Akechi’s shoulders shake with a stifled laugh before he straightened his back and turned around. “My apologies. A break ace.”

_See, Joker? I’ve already won our game_ , his boastful smile bragged.

“Not bad,” Ren conceded.

Akechi tilted his head to the side in mimicry of sheepishness. “Just a coincidence, of course. That won’t count.”

Ren smacked his cue against his palm. “How generous of you.”

Akechi didn’t talk much after that; he focused on his shots while Ren focused on him, tried to map out how his body language changed with the score, tried to capture the expressions that sprinted across his face and memorize the moments when he switched out his masks. There was still _so much_ Ren didn’t know about Akechi, so many contrasts he couldn’t reconcile: the cockiness in his posture and the tremor in his grip, the crisp starch of his collar and the wrinkles on his slacks, the vigor shaping his smile and the compliance sculpting his frown. Ren was overwhelmed, he was riveted, and he was absolutely fucking smitten--

“Oof. Bad move on my part. If you get this next one, I’m in trouble,” Akechi said, spreading a shallow humility over his obvious frustration that Ren was within a few points of the win. 

Ren stalked around the table as Akechi took a few steps backwards, folding himself over and sinking his one-ball easily.

“Not bad.” Akechi’s condescending praise slid like sweat down his back. “Everything’s riding on your next shot, though. How will you handle this?”

_If I were being responsible, I’d shoot carefully_ , Ren thought. _But we both know I’m neither careful nor responsible_. He fired off a powerful shot that should have landed: the cue ball connected with his two-ball dead in its center, sent it sailing across the table and arcing around the edges of a corner pocket. He heard another quiet laugh from Akechi before they traded places; Akechi put the game to bed quickly after that, but something in his demeanor shifted that Ren couldn’t quite place. His shots were softer, perhaps, a little less feisty, though no less precise. 

“I win,” he said, turning around as Ren scrambled to figure out what had changed. “That was a close one, though. I suppose it would have been embarrassing to lose as your senior, huh?”

“We’re the same age, actually,” Ren corrected, trailing his focus down Akechi’s chest to his hands. He was rolling the cue stick between his palms, left on top of right, twisting them like he couldn’t keep them still--

Ren flashed back to their conversation in the TV studio, when Akechi had confidently and without hesitation offered his left hand for the handshake. 

And he’d absolutely shot the break ace with his left hand, too.

_What a bizarre thing to lie about_ , Ren thought, but he knew he was right. 

“Is something the matter?” Akechi cocked his head to one side, a lock of honeyed hair fell into his eyes that he didn’t brush away.

Ren matched his tilt. “You used your right hand. Aren’t you left handed?”

Akechi let out a little hum, like he was biding his time while choosing a reaction. “I’m honestly impressed you noticed,” he finally said. “That’s right. I switched during the game. After you botched that power shot, going all out against you seemed a bit gauche--”

“You don’t need to coddle me,” Ren said. “I can handle your full strength.” 

“Awfully confident, aren’t you?” Akechi asked, a wide grin spreading across his face. “Especially after losing. But that aside, I confess you surprised me. I’m rather dextrous with my right hand. Frankly, I didn’t expect you to see through it.” 

“I see a lot of things,” Ren said. _Don't underestimate me._

“Oh, so those glasses are just for the aesthetic, then?” Akechi combed a nonexistent tangle from his bangs. “You’re a hard one to read sometimes.”

Ren pushed his glasses up his nose. “Don’t you think they look good on me?”

“They suit you,” Akechi conceded with a shrug. “Although they do remind me a bit of a mask. I wonder why that is?”

Arsène laughed at that one, deep and hearty, shaking Ren’s muscles and coaxing an orphic note from the strings of his bonds; Ren kept his face still as he shrugged it away. “You’re the detective. Maybe I should become one too? Since I figured out your trick and all.”

“A fine idea,” Akechi agreed. “My job would be a bit more exciting if I had a rival.”

_You already do_ , Ren couldn’t say out loud, but Joker’s smirk--an oath and a warning--painted it across his lips as Arsène’s roaring vibrato grew harsher.

“You never cease to intrigue me,” Akechi continued, and Ren realized it was probably the most honest compliment he could offer. “If you ever manage to win against me using my right hand, then I will face you with everything I have. You have my word.”

“Hm,” said Ren, doing his best impression of innocence. “So does that mean you want to do this again?”

Akechi nodded. “If you’d like to lose again, that is.”

“I’ll think about it,” Ren teased, but they both knew he was agreeing. “Are you hungry, Akechi-kun?” 

Akechi shook his head. “I have to get up early tomorrow.”

“So? You also have to have dinner. C’mon, my treat.” Ren nudged Akechi with his shoulder, lingered in the press just a moment too long.

When had they gotten so close?

“I suppose I could eat,” Akechi mumbled; Ren tried not to let himself read into the tiny crinkles pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Fine. How’s the revolving sushi shop near the station?” 

They sprinted through the rain to Harmony Alley. Akechi’s head swiveled a couple times, like he was scanning for fans, but no one looked away from their friends or their drinks long enough to recognize him. Their synchronized strides felt warm against the evening chill of the rain, comfortable and _normal_ in a way Ren rarely experienced. He felt heat steaming in his heartbeat, saw a faint, golden glow each time he blinked; Ren was certain their fledgling bond was growing stronger. 

“Here,” Akechi said as they came to a stop. “I visit sometimes with colleagues. It’s not awful for kaitenzushi.” 

Ren caught sight of Morgana from the corner of his eye; he waved him away with a hand hidden behind his back. “High praise.”

Akechi laughed, pushed the door open, and stepped inside. “Well, if you’re the one paying, I can’t request real sushi, can I?” 

“I’ll have you know the conbini and the flower shop pay very well,” Ren protested as he followed. The shop was small and bustling, packed with mostly solo diners staring straight ahead. Ren wondered if Akechi actually preferred it for that reason -- none of the seats faced the door; no one so much as looked up as he made his way towards two open stools. 

“You have two jobs?” Akechi asked as he slid his briefcase into the basket under his stool. “Impressive. Even so, my favorite sushiya is out of the price range of part-timers. I have to work lots of overtime before visiting myself.”

_You should try Mementos_ , Ren thought. It was slightly less foreboding to imagine Akechi there, shaking down shadows for sushi money and happening upon the Thieves outside Nakanohara’s little corner of Qimranut, instead of stalking them while they carved their infiltration route through Madarame’s palace. Slightly. 

Ren grabbed indiscriminately at the colorful plates passing them on the belt; Akechi wrinkled his nose at the offerings for a solid five minutes before finally grabbing one. Ren eyed the microscopic bites of uni that dotted the saucer, considered reaching his chopsticks over to swipe one, but held back. 

_Maybe on the second date._

“So.” Akechi swiveled on his stool to look at Ren. “Thanks for coming along today. Our little game turned out to be more interesting than I expected.” 

“You really thought I’d be boring?” Ren feigned offense, channeling Yusuke and clutching a hand to his chest while swiping more sashimi with the other. 

Akechi shook his head as he took another plate. “Of course not. Still, barely anyone notices when I don’t use my dominant hand. I can only commend your powers of observation.”

He was repeating himself, obviously enough that it caught Ren's attention. It wasn’t something he tended to do during interviews, wasn’t a pattern Ren had noticed in their previous conversations. Had he missed something? Was there some point Akechi was trying to slide between his words, some message Ren was meant to receive? 

Ren stayed quiet a moment, hoping Akechi would fill the silence; when he didn't, Ren decided to try something different. “I guess I just like looking at you,” he said finally, letting the softer side of his feelings ride the words to Akechi’s ears.

“You really are forward.” Akechi said, but from the way his gaze lapped at Ren’s temples, Ren was pretty damn sure the feeling was mutual. “I think you’ll be an interesting influence on me.”

Ren twisted on his stool, sharply enough to knock Akechi’s knee with his as if it were an accident. “I’m a bad influence, actually.”

He was delighted when Akechi laughed hard enough to make his shoulders hunched forward, full-bellied peals that sounded nothing like his TV trills. “I have no doubt about that.”

Ren knew--he _knew_ \--Akechi meant his rival. Meant Joker, not Ren. He knew that, but it didn’t prevent Ren’s chest from constricting, didn’t stop his stomach from scrambling with nausea, didn’t cease the galloping of his pulse or halt the heat spreading across the tops of his ears--

“If you’re so inclined,” Akechi continued, “we could go out again sometime.”

If Ren had figured out only one thing about Akechi, it was that he always deliberately chose his phrasing. Always. And he’d just said they could _go out_ again. Not hang out, not chill, not get together, not play billiards, not grab dinner -- Ren’s brain rattled off a whole damn list of platonic-sounding alternatives before he remembered to actually reply.

“Sure,” he said, “As rivals?”

Akechi leaned forward on his stool. “Whatever works for you. As long as I can spend some time with you, think of it as you please.”

“You’re the one who wanted a rival, right?” Ren grinned. “You think you can find a better one than me?”

Akechi rolled his eyes down Ren’s hunched back before looking up to signal for the check. “I could certainly find one who’s a bit more humble.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Ren asked, as the waitress came to tally their plates. 

When she returned with the bill, Akechi tried to pick it up; Ren slammed his hand down and trapped Akechi's against the table. “Nice try, but I said I’d get this one.”

“So you did,” Akechi said, flicking Ren’s palm before pulling his hand away.

By the time Ren paid and made it outside, the rain had stopped and Akechi had disappeared; instead, Morgana was waiting for him, fur puffed and blue eyes flashing with anger. “You better have gotten some damn good intel.”

Ren knelt down and held open his bag. “I’m sorry you had to wait so long.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Morgana huffed as he clambered inside. “You’re not sorry at all. I bet you didn’t get me any sushi, either. Probably couldn’t swipe any without Akechi noticing.” 

“Sorry,” Ren mumbled again as he headed down the escalator.

“Did you pay the pet fare this time?” Morgana asked as they boarded the train.

“Do I ever?”

“Not like you can’t afford it. My ride could be so much more comfortable if you’d just pay up.” Morgana clawed the strap of Ren’s bag. “So did he bring us up at all?”

Ren tried to choose his words carefully. “He seems to have a personal interest in the Phantom Thieves. And I think he might be starting to trust me.”

It wasn’t _quite_ a lie -- a hubristic and foolish statement, maybe; a string of trust woven into the rope of their bond that grew before it was earned. But it wasn’t a lie. 

Morgana narrowed his eyes, sunk his claws into the straps of Ren’s bag for emphasis. “And you’re not letting your little crush cloud your judgment?”

Ren sighed. “I don’t want to fight with you, Morgana, but I’m not going to stop seeing him. This is important.”

_Akechi is important_ , he repeated like a vow, and he swore that from somewhere beyond his mind, Igor nodded his head in agreement.


	5. peripheral vision

“So we meet again,” Akechi said, sidling up next to Ren and bumping their shoulders together like it was something normal, a chance greeting between two friends and not a cocky declaration of the day’s first triumph. It was exactly what Ren would do, were Akechi the one munching a pastry while half-asleep on the subway platform: creep up quietly behind him, startle him with a smile and an unexpected touch that was too gentle for its true intentions, and start talking before Akechi could catch his balance.

“Good morning to you, too,” Ren said through a mouthful of melon pan, straightening his back and steadying his buckling knees. Akechi might have chosen the motion for its harmless appearance, but he’d leaned into it all the same, lingered a moment too long like he liked the heat of Ren’s shoulder, like the way they circled each other like vultures wasn't just a competition, but some kind of fucked-up courtship ritual. Swells of anger and something else churned in Ren’s stomach when he thought back to their billiards match, to Akechi all but openly calling him naive, to his unspoken declaration that Ren would never beat him, to the razorblade smile he’d beamed when Ren offered up a rivalry like a long-stemmed rose. 

Akechi wanted a rival? Ren was more than happy to give him exactly what he wanted, and to take exactly what _he_ wanted in return. He was going to wrench every last secret from his _rival’s_ heart until it was pliant and willing in his hands, going to let him think he had the Phantom Thieves within his grasp until Ren could seize the perfect moment and snatch away his victory. He was going to get to the bottom of their bond, to its impermeable, unbreakable core, going to find out why Akechi hated the Phantom Thieves so much, find out what drove his justice and confront him, liar to liar, in the Metaverse. 

And if he was lucky, when they were both stripped of their masks, raw-skinned and flame-bitten, there would be a path forward, a way for two people who never learned how to be honest with anyone to try it out with each other. 

But to get there, he had to _win_. 

What was a rivalry, if not a dance between two people trying to pin the other down?

“It seems we like the same pastry,” Akechi said, plucking a matching melon pan from the paper bag in his hand.

 _Interesting word choice_ , Ren thought as he sipped his (one-note, but not altogether terrible) coffee. It certainly would _seem_ like they liked the same pastry, since they’d turned up on the platform toting identical Yon Germain bags. But there was so much room for falsehood within words that were, technically, true. And Ren recognized a lie when one was being told, watching Akechi draw the melon pan from its bag and stare it down like he was conducting an appraisal, fighting off a wrinkle of his nose as he took a tiny, tender bite.

Akechi had never even tried melon pan before.

Questions swirled through Ren’s mind: had he been close enough to overhear Ren’s mumbled order to the clerk, or to watch as the bread was plucked from the display case? Just how long had Akechi been tailing him through the station? Why put forth such a pointless false similarity, when there were so many real ones to offer instead -- except that was the point, wasn’t it? Akechi was trying to trick Ren into believing their similarities lived in their masks, in the orchestrated coincidences peppered throughout their encounters. 

And he was daring Ren to notice.

Ren had to suppress a smile at the thought; it was one more way they were _truly_ similar. Nice, honest people didn’t take pleasure in unraveling the other’s lies--

“But my, what murky weather we’re having,” Akechi offered, filling the lull before taking another bite.

Akechi didn’t actually want to talk about the weather. He was surely trying to bait Ren into bringing up the Phantom Thieves, or otherwise into dropping some sort of hint that would aid in his underhanded investigation. But it wasn’t going to work. Ren met Akechi’s unblinking eyes and purposefully blinked his own, kept his lips soft and neutral, made it clear he was perfectly content to wait quietly until Akechi tried a better conversation topic. 

No one was better at silence than Ren. 

It worked quickly. Akechi opened his mouth again after only a few moments of eye contact, glancing down at the ground as he spoke. “Speaking of murky, there haven’t been any new developments in the Phantom Thief incidents. I doubt Madarame’s case will be the last, though--”

Ren didn’t bother holding back his laugh, cutting Akechi off with a short trill. “Speaking of _murky_?”

“Did I say something wrong?” Akechi asked.

Ren bit back the last of his laughter and grinned. “You should work on your transitions. That wasn’t very smooth.”

For a few unrestrained seconds, Akechi looked annoyed, before the rogue expression twisted into a facsimile of amusement. “I’m not used to being the interviewer, I suppose,” he said, eyes narrowing even as his lips curled upwards. 

“So this is an interview?” Ren tipped his coffee cup back to down its last lukewarm drops. “Hit me with your next question, then. I’m ready.”

“As you wish,” Akechi said, a little gleam creeping into his eyes. “What target will they choose next? What do you think?”

Ren feigned a moment of deep thought, bringing his thumb and forefinger to his chin and closing his eyes, imitating Akechi’s pose from that ridiculous tell-all magazine cover just long enough to make the mockery clear. “I have no idea,” he finally said, dropping his hand and meeting Akechi’s gaze with a shit-eating grin just to see what would happen. 

Instead of saying anything, Akechi laughed, reached out, and lightly smacked Ren on the arm. It was the second unexpected touch of the morning, and it ricocheted through his bones like a goddamn ball of lightning. A surprised little yelp escaped Ren’s throat before he could suppress it, and Akechi grinned like he’d won a fucking prize. 

“To be blunt, neither do I,” he said, mouth hardening into a line even as his eyes kept laughing. “There’s just not enough material to form anything concrete; however, I’m positive they’ll soon target someone who will garner even more attention.”

Ren shrugged like his arm wasn’t still electrified. “Who’s to say they want attention?” 

After that, it was Akechi’s turn to fall silent. His gaze slipped between the slats of the tracks, and his eyes lost their focus, if not their sharpness. For a moment, Ren forgot his place and forgot their game, caught himself imagining what it might be like to spend a whole damn morning doing nothing but watch Akechi think. He’d catalogue the flickers of intensity in his eyes, map out the path of his slumped shoulders, centimeter by centimeter. If he were really feeling brave, he might even trace those shoulders with cupped palms instead of eager eyes--

Instead, Ren nudged him with a question, the remnants of his daydream softening his voice a bit more than intended. “What’re you thinking?”

Akechi shook his head, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear as the train pulled into the station. “Sorry. I’m getting lost in my own head.” 

His voice was startlingly heavy, weighing down the stuffy air of the platform with its gravity. Ren wished he could reach out and break off a piece of the sentence to carry in his pocket. He’d never heard Akechi sound _sad_ before. He’d expected anger -- with Akechi, he was _always_ expecting anger, always searching for little glints of matches struck against comb, of smoldering charcoal in the darkness of his pupils. 

But anger was the bellow to grief’s whisper, the punch and the kick to pain’s recoil and wince; Ren knew this like he knew his own rage. It was almost protective, in a way. Old scars disappeared under fresh burns, all the different sources of pain melted together. 

Anger was the perfect mask. 

They boarded the train without another word; Ren leaned into the crush of the crowd and let his mind wander again. For reasons he couldn’t quite identify, their conversation left him wondering what Akechi’s persona said when it awakened. He had to have one, and a strong one at that, if he was stalking the Thieves in the Metaverse without being devoured by shadows. What did someone like Akechi’s personification of justice look like? Was his persona a detective, like Ren’s was a thief? Had his persona laughed and taunted him, like Arsène had done to Ren? Had Akechi screamed its name like Ren did?

What Ren would have given to see Akechi rip the mask from his pretty face for the very first time--

***

 **absolutely not the phantom thieves’ group chat**  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: yooooooo guys i’m bored  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: wanna go play darts? ooh or billiards??  
>>Ann✮Chan: i really wanna try that sometime!!  
>>Ann✮Chan: but not tonight. my parents are actually in tokyo for once  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: Schoolwork demands my full attention tonight. I apologize.  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: boooo  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: renren??? darts???  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: maybe  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: wait hang on  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: Is everything all right, Ren?  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: i just got a reply from the journalist  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: we only had to wait one day? not bad not bad  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: What did she say?  
>>Ann✮Chan: did she agree to talk??  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: she wants to meet tonight  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: at a bar in shinjuku  
>>Ann✮Chan: uhh where exactly in shinjuku?  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: kabukicho  
>>Ann✮Chan: kabukicho?? isn’t that the red light district? ren this sounds sketchy af  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: I WANNA COME WITH  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: no.  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: for real?!  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: Agreed. It should just be you, Ren.  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: the hell?  
>>Ann✮Chan: what if ohya-san won’t talk if someone other than ren shows?  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: exactly. i’ll bring morgana for backup but ryuji’s staying home  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: and what if you get lost on the way there??  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: i’m not taking the ginza line  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: so i’m good  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: ughhhh fine, have all the fun yourself  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: Please let us know right away if you find anything out!  
>>Ann✮Chan: be careful!

***

The next time Ren saw Akechi, he should have been radiating smugness. He’d pulled off a miracle, after all: teasing Junya Kaneshiro’s name out from behind the neon lights of Shinjuku, in a clandestine meeting somewhere he knew Akechi couldn’t follow. Ren was a nobody, could sidle up to Crossroads’ pink bar and order a tea without a second glance from its patrons, but Akechi was too recognizable to so much as skulk in the doorway. The squeaky-clean Detective Prince in a Kabukicho drag bar? The tabloids would have a field day.

Ren didn’t envy his fame. It wasn’t nearly to the same degree as what he imagined Akechi experienced, but he knew all too well how it felt to be labeled like a specimen, pinned to his desk at school by unfriendly stares and cold whispers. Crossroads was actually the first place other than the Metaverse where Ren felt detached from the rumors he wore like handcuffs. Sitting in that scalloped back booth with Ohya, realizing that no one in the bar was looking at him and seeing a criminal, a delinquent, or hell, even assuming he was _straight_ , was goddamn liberating.

But the feeling didn’t--couldn’t--last, was swallowed and spit back out by an ever-familiar rancor once the Thieves met the mafia boss himself. Kaneshiro was another abusive piece of shit who deserved to be taught the meaning of justice, another distorted adult blackmailing Ren with the loss of his future. It was comical, really; how many more sniveling criminals planned to come out of the woodwork with ever-more-elaborate blackmail schemes?

_Joke’s on them. Can’t burn down a life that’s already in ashes._

But just because _Ren’s_ life was already ruined didn’t mean his friends deserved the same fate; he couldn’t allow Kaneshiro to snatch their futures away like the drunk man snatched his. The Thieves all had dreams beyond just surviving the school year, but they trusted Ren with their lives anyway, put their faith in his leadership and his fiery justice knowing full well it could destroy them. Even Niijima--Makoto, Ren supposed he could probably call her Makoto--had come to trust him. She had awakened to a persona of her own, clenched her fists and fought with bruises on her back from the knees of Kaneshiro’s men. Ren couldn’t let her down. He couldn’t let any of them down--

They’d all agreed to meet on the accessway after school, to grind Kaneshiro's demands under their shoes and infiltrate the palace without delay. And it was there that Ren spotted Akechi, standing by Yon Germain, eyes fixed on a point somewhere between the ciabatta and the baguette, hands idly fiddling with the knot of his tie.

Ren might have been smitten, but he wasn’t a fool. Finding Akechi there wasn’t fate, like the line he’d dropped the first time they’d spoken by the trains, nor was it any sort of coincidence. Akechi wasn’t actually spacing out while contemplating different types of breads, just like he hadn’t happened upon Ren in the hallway and been taken in by his charming smile, just like Ren hadn’t been chosen randomly to debate him on air.

Akechi was there because he was staking out the accessway, and if Ren passed him by without acknowledging his presence, Akechi would follow him right into the Metaverse.

Ren was infuriated -- and he was impressed. It was a damn good move, one that couldn’t be allowed to go unchallenged. He had to get ahead of this, had to signal to Akechi that he wasn’t that oblivious. That he was looking for Akechi just as much as Akechi was looking for him. 

“You’re stopping to talk to your boyfriend _now_?” Morgana yowled as Ren crossed the busy passageway. “Are you insatiable? We’re about to infiltrate!”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Ren hastily protested. “Just give me a minute.” 

A little twinge of something dark prickled in his gut as he approached Yon Germain. Akechi could never be his boyfriend -- couldn’t be _just_ his boyfriend, anyway, no matter how many flips his stomach performed in the shape of the word. It wasn’t like he could ask Akechi out to the movies, or on some cutesy outing to Inokashira Park. They could date, but it would always be riding on their rivalry’s stakes, bound by the contrast of the shadows and the spotlight until their fight came to a head. And there was no telling where they’d be when that happened, if Ren could come out the other side with his heart and their bond still intact. Because the truth was that Ren’s heart didn’t flutter so much as it quaked when he caught sight of Akechi, hammered nails into his pulse and shouted its beats into his bloodstream whenever they talked. Ren couldn’t tell which was stronger: his desperate longing to wrap Akechi up in his arms, or Joker’s frenzied desire to crush Akechi’s secrets between his red-gloved palms--

“Hey,” he said, tapping Akechi on the shoulder, letting his fingertips brush gratuitously over the hem of Akechi’s short sleeve as he turned. His skin was soft and his arm more muscular than its slim appearance suggested; Ren shouldn’t have been surprised. 

“Ah, it’s you!” Akechi tilted his head and smiled. “I’m glad you decided to speak to me.” 

The smile itself wasn’t unexpected, but Ren hadn’t anticipated it being so bright and unposed. It didn’t quite reach his eyes, but neither did it contrast heavily against them; they glinted with the glare of the light on Ren’s glasses, took their time winding a path from Ren’s eyes to his collarbones to his waist. As always, Ren searched for anger, for crackles of frustration; he’d forgotten how _hungry_ Akechi’s eyes could be instead, how easily they could knock him onto his back with a well-timed swoop. It was a dangerous combination, those eyes and that smile. It made Ren want to lean a little closer, speak a little lower, slide his hand down Akechi’s side next time instead of over his arm, more of a dare than a simple suggestion--

“Of course I did,” Ren said, forcing himself to stay rooted in place. “What brings you here? I don’t usually see you in Shibuya after school.”

Akechi shrugged, shaking some of the intensity out of his expression. “I’m here for a taping. But I had some time before it began, so I decided to walk around.”

Ren took another step closer to Akechi, leaning against the wall beside him and angling his face away from the accessway. “But the Phantom Thieves have been so quiet. You don’t have anything to talk about.”

Akechi’s eyes widened, sharpening the blade of his gaze against Ren’s throat and _oh_ , there was the anger Ren was waiting for, bubbling in the furrow of Akechi’s brow and thickening the inhale he sucked through the cracks of his frozen smile. He forced out what was probably meant to be a laugh, but it shattered against the tile between their feet. His fury was delicious on Ren’s tongue, hot against his cheeks and sharp atop his ears--

“For your information, I do discuss other topics,” Akechi finally said. “For instance, I’ve heard many rumors about a criminal group lately. I hope you have avoided involvement.” 

_Wouldn’t you like to know?_ Ren thought, mimicking Akechi’s shrug as he stayed silent, shoved his hands in his pockets and waited. 

Akechi hummed into the sliver of silence between them, lips twisting into a facsimile of concern not unlike the one he’d worn during their on-air debate. “Is everything okay? You needn’t hesitate to ask if you require help. I have police connections, you know.” 

“How gallant,” Ren said, letting something between a smirk and a sneer stretch across his lips. “Is that what you were thinking about before? You looked like you were in your own little world.”

“I did, hm?” Akechi asked. “Well, this city is never short on excitement. First the train accident, now this mafia, not to mention the Phantom Thieves. I’ve thought of a great many things during my stroll.”

Ren filed away the incongruous mention of the train accident for further evaluation when things were calmer, then buried his intrigue under a second, smaller smirk. “Phantom Thieves, huh? So much for other topics.”

Akechi aimed another vicious smile between Ren’s eyes and fired it like a bullet. “That reminds me, did the Phantom Thieves go to the Madarame exhibit before committing their crime? What is their goal? And who might be their next target?” 

_Interesting_.

Ren wondered if Akechi unleashed the rambling barrage of broad questions to bury the specificity of his first one. While it was true that Yusuke and Morgana had plastered the outside of the building with calling cards, they hadn’t left any copies inside the exhibit itself. As far as the news narrative went, the Phantom Thieves were never spotted attending the exhibit, and only a cat had been caught on the security cameras outside. None of the news pundits cast the exhibit’s attendees under suspicion; even Akechi himself hadn’t posited that theory publicly. 

The only reason it would have been on his mind while talking to Ren was if--

“Did you get to go?” Ren asked. _And did you maybe see me there? Is that how you recognized my unmasked face in the studio hallway?_

Akechi opened his mouth, but a high-pitched squeal from the Yon Germain line filled the air before he could speak. 

“Hey, isn’t that Akechi-kun?”

“I’m gonna go ask for a picture with him!”

Akechi grinned like he'd caught a life preserver; Ren resisted the urge to curse out the fans for depriving him of his answer. “Someone’s popular,” he said, doing a half-assed impersonation of being impressed. 

“I’ve been gaining more recognition lately. I would love to chat more, but I really must be going.” Akechi gestured discreetly towards the line. “I hope to see you again soon, Amamiya-kun.”

Ren leaned against the wall and watched as Akechi tried and failed to make his exit into the crowd, no doubt planning to double back as soon as Ren turned his back, but two fans caught him and corralled him into a rapid-fire burst of selfies. He was remarkably fast at shifting his facial expression from disappointment at the delay to damn near sparkling with gratitude when the first flash fired -- although when a line formed behind the girls, another microscopic grimace quietly crossed his face. 

Ren sighed and headed for the accessway. He’d glance backwards as soon as he had cover behind him, make sure he didn’t lose sight of Akechi--

“Ren!” Ann bounded up to him and slung an arm over his shoulder. “Glad we’re not the only ones running late.”

“We went out for crepes,” Makoto offered shyly as she came up behind them. “I’m sorry we didn’t bring you one.”

Morgana stuck his head out of Ren’s bag to interject. “He’s not a crepe guy.”

Ren sighed. Morgana had insisted, from the very first day they had walked Central Street together, that he wasn’t a crepe guy. Ren was _absolutely_ a crepe guy--especially strawberry cheesecake crepes, or banana chocolate crepes--but every time he tried to correct Morgana on the matter, he was shot down, as though his own opinion on crepes was incorrect. It was bizarre, but he didn’t have the energy to argue; he was too busy mentally replaying his conversation with Akechi, stealing glances from the corners of his eyes trying to find him again.

“Yo!” Ryuji’s voice and arms rose above the crowds as he caught sight of the three stragglers and waved. 

He was _so goddamn loud_. Makoto glared, Ann hid her face in her hands, and Ren whipped his head back towards Yon Germain, but he was too late. The line-up of fans had scattered, and Akechi himself was nowhere to be seen amongst the throng of commuters. 

But he was there, and he was watching. 

Ren was _certain_ he was watching.

The Thieves were about to waltz into Kaneshiro’s palace with a stalker in tow -- on Ren’s order. If and when his friends ever found out about Akechi, about everything Ren knew and for how long he’d known it, this moment would damn him. He could always feign ignorance, of course, but that wouldn’t be the kind of lie that sat easy in his gut, the kind that he could wrap up in ribbons and justify as mere silence or some kind of protective necessity. This was the kind of lie that put the rest of the Thieves directly into danger, the kind of barbed-wire lie that would show everyone who Ren really was underneath his masks and mirrors, if they ever caught him tangled in it. 

But was there another choice? Had Akechi left space for a _choice_ between his back and the wall with his latest trap? Ren could stall, perhaps, make up an excuse to postpone the infiltration and double back after everyone parted ways, scope out a more secluded spot and try again tomorrow. But there was no guarantee, tomorrow or any other day, that Akechi wouldn’t be tailing them. They hadn’t noticed him in Madarame’s palace, he’d taken Ren by surprise on the damn Ginza line platform, he’d even accosted them in an empty fucking hallway in the television studio. If not for the Akechi’s singular misstep--if not for Morgana's inexplicable description of a theme park as a stack of pancakes--the Thieves would be clueless, bumbling in the dark with no inkling that someone was on their trail. No doubt Akechi would have still pulled all the same stunts, no doubt Ren would still be chasing their bond as it sang in his chest, but Akechi would already have him in checkmate and he wouldn’t even know it. 

But he knew, and that meant he could fight. 

If Akechi still thought his hand was fully concealed, if he didn’t yet realize Ren could feel the heat of his sherry eyes even when he couldn’t see them, then maybe Ren could play this to the Thieves’ advantage. They could put on a damn good performance of an infiltration, plow through as much of the palace as Kaneshiro’s cognition would allow in one go, and all Ren needed to do besides show off was keep the idle chatter to a minimum, and be extra vigilant as they approached the location of the treasure. He didn’t think Akechi had yet discerned the actual methodology behind changing hearts simply from his observations of Madarame’s palace. He likely hadn’t been present the whole time, given how many times the Thieves were interrupted, and he almost certainly hadn’t observed the final battle; Ren figured that Madarame’s shadow wouldn’t have mentioned the man in the black mask if he’d felt any sort of unknown presence besides the Thieves’. 

But more than anything, it was Akechi’s own words themselves that convinced Ren he didn’t understand the way stealing hearts worked. _The matter of how they change people’s hearts_ , he’d said during the interview when everything began. _If they honestly possess that ability, it could be used for more than extracting confessions. It could be that what seem to be ordinary crimes are actually being perpetrated by these methods._

Ren didn’t know everything about the Metaverse, but he didn’t think anyone who knew how the process worked would connect it with the perpetration of so-called ordinary crimes. Fighting shadows didn’t seem to work that way: from what Ren could tell, the options were either total annihilation, like they did to all the shadows wandering in packs through Mementos, or negotiation, wherein the shadows remembered their names and returned to the human heart in some capacity. For the palace rulers, that was the spark that carried out the change of heart itself; for the shadows without rulers, that was how they found their way into Ren’s mask.

Ren understood that Akechi’s narrative was partially crafted to stir up a media frenzy, but that alone didn’t seem sufficient for the way he’d framed the Thieves’ powers. On the day of their debate, even before the microphone was thrust into Ren’s hands, he was certain that Akechi was speaking directly to him. He'd been threatening him, yes, but it went beyond that. Threats could be vague or specific, big or small, but rarely were their intentions purposefully misconstrued. 

It was almost like Akechi was trying to _warn_ him, somehow--

“Are we doing this?” Yusuke asked.

Ren nodded, gathered the Thieves into a tight circle and pressed the MetaNav. “It’s showtime.”


	6. don't think, just move

“Damn, Renren, that was insane!” Ryuji exclaimed, palms hitting the pavement as the Thieves crash-landed in Shibuya at Buchiko’s feet. “That last ambush was freakin’ vicious, dude.”

“Indeed. You are always passionate, Ren, but the ferocity in your strikes today was unrivaled,” Yusuke said with a nod, gazelle limbs sprawled across Morgana’s back and Makoto’s ankles. “If only I’d brought a canvas upon which to capture your raw virility--”

“Phrasing,” Morgana croaked from beneath the crook of his knee.

 _Phrasing indeed_ , Ren thought with a smirk. There was nothing _unrivaled_ about the way he’d torn through Kaneshiro’s palace. Nothing unrivaled about the breakneck pace he’d set for their infiltration, the extra spins he put on his punches, the deeper, sharper tone in which he commanded his personas to strike. He hadn’t managed to snag so much as a glimpse of Akechi, but that wasn’t enough to make him question his presence. Akechi was _absolutely_ there with them, mapping his way through the same green-lit corridors and tiptoeing over the same scattered stacks of yen. 

Joker was already so naturally goddamn pompous in a way Ren was often reticent to embrace, but something about Akechi’s lurking presence gave Ren all the permission he’d been craving to drop the last of his pretenses and _perform_. They’d come upon an unusual type of shadow, attack dogs that transformed into Stygian monsters when the masks were ripped from their slobbering faces. They howled like banshees when Ren backflipped to grasp their collars, when he dug his heels into their necks and _god_ , did Ren hope that Akechi had a good view, hoped he could see both the candor and the menace in the way Ren fought, hoped he felt the brutality of his justice and imagined himself squirming beneath it--

Makoto groaned, looking nervously around the crowds. “Did anyone see us falling? Our reentry wasn’t exactly subtle.”

Ren shrugged, ran an absentminded hand behind his neck, and scanned the square for anyone sober enough to flag a group of teenagers falling from the sky as something abnormal. But everyone in Station Square at fifteen minutes past midnight was either six pours of shochu past intoxication or inebriated with sheer exhaustion. It was disconcerting how unaware they were of their surroundings, really, but Ren was in no position to question it, given the alternative: panicked bystanders reporting to the police, red-and-blue lights marring the darkness, Akechi’s smug grin as he snapped handcuffs around Ren’s wrists and hauled him across the square to the cops--

“I can’t believe we did that whole palace in one day!” Ann stretched her arms over her head, slumping against the base of the Buchiko statue. “Seriously, Ren, you are such a showoff. Trying to make a good impression on our new member?”

“Is it not typical to secure the infiltration route in one day?” Makoto asked.

Ann shook her head before dropping it onto Makoto’s shoulder. “We never have before.”

 _I never knew Akechi was watching us before_ , Ren didn’t say. 

“We were all brand-new to the Metaverse when it came to Kamoshida,” Ryuji said with a shrug, pulling a soda out of his schoolbag. “It took us, like, four days between finding Morgana, Ann’s awakening, and nearly passing out from exhaustion.” 

Yusuke nodded. “For Sensei--I mean, Madarame--the problem was his own cognition. In fact, it was due to that blockage that I was brought into the Metaverse at all.” 

Makoto nodded. “I see. But I think we should minimize our infiltration times from here on out, if possible.” 

Ren stayed quiet, letting them shrug off the infiltration as a stroke of valiant determination instead of a spite-filled production. But he couldn't wait too long; they needed to get out of Station Square before Akechi left the palace, too. Unless he’d packed a parachute, his re-entry would be as graceless and jarring as the Thieves’, and Ren was too damn exhausted to feign shock if one of the Thieves spotted him.

“We should head home,” Morgana said, perching atop Buchiko’s head. “Last train to Yongen’s at 12:40 and it’s _way_ past bedtime.”

“C’mon, ain’t we at least got time to hit the conbini? Ooh, or Big Bang Burger?” Ryuji pleaded. “It’s only midnight and I’m starvin’ after all that fighting!”

Ren considered his choices. Getting everyone on their trains as quickly as possible was tempting, but he’d lose sight of all the Thieves the moment they descended the main staircase, since no one else took the Den-en-Toshi line. God forbid Akechi somehow re-entered directly into the station, or one of the Thieves spotted him amongst the thinning crowds without Ren’s knowledge. If they detoured down Central Street instead, everyone would enter the station together, and Ren could see them off to their platforms--and see to it that no one crossed paths with Akechi--before making his own way home. 

So Ren stared Morgana down, sending his best Joker glare into his determined, sleepy eyes. “I’m hungry, too.”

When that didn’t work, he turned to bribery. “Please? I’ll buy you your own burger.”

Morgana made a big show of sighing, but he leapt onto the sidewalk and strutted towards Shibuya Crossing awfully quickly once his meal ticket was secured. “Fine. Just this once! We did work pretty hard on that infiltration.” 

“Hell yeah we did! Burger time!” Ryuji threw his arm around Yusuke’s shoulders. “C’mon, Yusuke. I’ve got yours today.”

“I am in your debt,” Yusuke replied, bowing into the embrace as the girls giggled; Makoto leaned over towards Ann and whispered in her ear as they walked. 

“He’s not great with money,” Ann replied far too loudly. 

“You mean he’s goddamn terrible with money,” Ryuji chimed in. “But we keep him around anyway.”

Ren couldn’t help but laugh. 

For all the energy Akechi took up in his heart, the Thieves were quietly becoming precious to him, too. Their bonds were soft in his heart where Akechi’s was sharp, made Ren want to slow down when Akechi’s made him want to sprint. He was still learning how to relax within the confines of his friendships, how to let go and just be in the platonic intimacy the Thieves offered. He never knew what mask to wear when so many people were talking to him at once, so most of the time, he simply kept quiet. 

But the Thieves made him want to try, to talk and laugh, to lean back and accept the arms they slung over his shoulders without jerking away. So Ren let himself fall into lockstep with the group, let their laughter coat his ears and their playful jabs rest on his skin. And when Ryuji held up his phone for a group photo in the fluorescent cube of Big Bang Burger, Ren looked into its flash, rested a hand on Yusuke’s back, and smiled. 

***

“You always end up listening to me, even though I’m meant to be the one counseling you,” Maruki said, leaning forward as Ren squirmed in his chair. “Does that bother you?”

Ren wished he could take the question into his hands and grind it to powder. It was neither smooth nor subtle, and its goal was entirely too familiar. Maruki didn’t care what Ren said, so long as it offered an invitation to probe his fucking tentacles deeper into Ren’s mind. His question was meant not to confirm some unspoken expectation, but to smooth down the hair rising on Ren’s arms, to name Ren’s feelings and polish them against the silver of Maruki’s reflection. If there was one thing Ren had learned from his elementary forays into bond-building, it was that people felt safer when they saw themselves in their surroundings, recognized their own thoughts in their companions’ words, saw their own tears pooling in the corners of their companions’ eyes. They let their posture go lax, let their eyes go soft and their lips go loose; they let even the thinnest blanket of kinship wrap itself around their shoulders and warm their shivers away.

It was nothing like that for Ren. He _hated_ seeing his own reflection. It was like catching the gaze of a porcelain doll: unblinking, unmoving, just some brushstrokes of pigment swiped across a vacuous expression. And it never looked like him, not fully -- it was always missing the coiled smoke in his pupils and treacherous flush of anger lurking on his cheeks. No one else looked closely enough to spot those and beam them back. 

Almost no one, anyway.

“Ren?” Maruki repeated. “Does that bother you?”

Ren’s answer was supposed to be no, it didn’t bother him; ordinarily, he’d even go so far as to say it benefitted him. Listening to other people was Ren’s cloak and dagger, his strongest means of survival since long before he’d weaponized it in the form of his personas. He’d always weighed loneliness against vulnerability and chosen the former; it was only since the Velvet Room that Ren had started paying attention to his heart when it called out for connection, started trusting its intuition enough to risk extending his hand when the call of a bond beckoned. 

And another one _was_ beckoning -- one that Ren _really_ didn’t want to acknowledge, with the man sipping apple juice from a goddamn box like a child, beaming gentleness across the table as he waited for Ren to speak. Was this what it was always like, for people whose hearts were naturally open and trusting? To be able to look at damn near anyone and feel the prick of a new bond’s bud? 

It was a strange and uncomfortable thought, that. Ren pushed it down into the acid of his stomach, reached for the watery coffee Maruki brewed for him forty minutes ago, and chugged it as his phone buzzed in his pocket.

Maruki looked at him like he’d heard the sound; Ren seized the opportunity. 

“I need to head out,” Ren said, faking an apologetic shrug. “Appointment.”

“Of course,” Maruki said, graciously letting him go, just like Ren knew he would. 

He rose from his chair and bolted from the room, but didn’t check his phone until he was leaning against the bike racks next to Aoyama-Itchome station. Morgana had gone home after class with Ann again, like he always did on therapy days, which meant Ren could go anywhere in Tokyo without having to argue his case. 

And there was one person in particular Ren was hoping to see.

 **New direct message from Goro Akechi**  
>>Goro: I’m alone right now.  
>>Goro: In Kichijoji.

Damn. And Akechi had called _him_ forward. 

Ren grinned, tapped out an extremely reckless reply. He was a moment away from hitting send as his phone buzzed again--

>>Goro: If you feel so inclined, perhaps you could meet me here and we could chat for  
awhile?

\--and he quickly, hastily deleted it, and started over.

Chat. Right. 

**Direct message between Ren Amamiya and Goro Akechi**  
>>Goro: I’m alone right now.  
>>Goro: In Kichijoji.  
>>Goro: If you feel so inclined, perhaps you could meet me here and we could chat for awhile?  
>>Ren: i’d like that  
>>Goro: I’ve found a respectable cafe here in Kichijoji.  
>>Goro: Don’t worry. My treat, of course.  
>>Ren: be there soon

As he made his way from Shujin to Kichijoji, Ren tried to berate himself into some modicum of emotional control, tried to stifle the excited flutter that was rapidly overtaking his pulse. Intel. He was supposed to see Akechi because he needed new intel. _Only_ intel. No matter how roughly their bond beat in his chest, no matter how his heart both darkened and glowed when he thought of Akechi’s face, he owed it to the Thieves to focus on gathering intel. Owed it to _himself_ to focus on gathering intel. 

And that day's opportunity was a unique one: he knew Akechi would be seeking some very specific information of his own. After all, he’d only days ago watched the Thieves drive their way into the very heart of Kaneshiro’s vault, but _nothing happened afterwards_. The palace was still intact, Kaneshiro hadn’t yet had his heart changed, and he hadn’t seen the Thieves actually _steal_ anything except the yen from inside a few piggy banks. It had to be driving Akechi fucking mad. Ren couldn’t help but smirk at the thought: Akechi, trailing the Thieves for the whole palace without gaining a damn shred of intel beyond how Joker looked with his red-gloved hands around a shadow’s throat.

Ren knew he could use that, could tug at that indignant frustration and stoke those pretty flames until they took over Akechi’s eyes, all without giving up anything Akechi hadn’t already seen in exchange. Ren was a thief, and a damn good one at that; he would make Akechi’s secrets his own if it was the last thing he did, would coax them from lips and pluck them from his pockets, unwrap them like candies and let Arsène hold them behind his teeth--

Ren was certain his _rival_ would expect no less.

Akechi was waiting under the same awning as last time, knocking his ridiculous monogrammed briefcase against his knee while tapping away at his phone, brows furrowed at whatever held his attention. Ren greeted him with a shoulder nudge, grinning when Akechi nearly dropped his phone from the impact. “Hey there.” 

Akechi pushed back into Ren’s shoulder without looking up. “Hello, Amamiya-kun. You got here quickly.”

“I was nearby,” Ren lied, pushing a hand through his hair and looking around. “So where’s this cafe?” 

“Nearby,” Akechi repeated with a shrug, not moving. He kept his eyes downcast, dodging Ren’s inquisitive glances as he swiped at his phone’s screen.

“Is something the matter?” Ren asked. “You’re not usually so absorbed in your phone.” 

Akechi finally looked up, too-wide eyes staring past Ren’s collar as a sculpted smile graced his lips. “I was just reading an article about myself--”

“How modest,” Ren tried to interject, but Akechi ignored him. 

“--and how I’ve ended up with a rather extreme fanbase. Like the girls you saw accost me at Yon Germain.” Akechi’s grin turned into a glare -- a well-masked glare, but a glare nonetheless; Ren knew bitten-back anger when he saw it. 

_You mean the ones you used as a smokescreen?_ he didn’t say, shrugging off the words with a purse of his lips, offering a little nod of affirmation in their place.

It was enough to get Akechi to continue.

“As far as they’re concerned, anyone in my company must meet their standards of intelligence and attractiveness,” he said. “If not, well, they take to social media, denouncing and harassing the people in question.”

Ren sucked in a breath of air, readying a quip about his questionable appearance--when _was_ the last time he’d brushed his hair, anyway?--but before he could open his mouth, Akechi’s twisted into a smirk. 

“But you?” he said, eyes tracing the whole of Ren’s shape as he spoke. “I expect you’ll pass muster easily.” 

Ren’s blood fizzed in his veins like cola. 

“I don’t know about that,” he said with a bite to his lip, leaning a forearm against the wall next to Akechi’s shoulder. “I’ve got quite the reputation.”

Akechi’s stare scraped back down Ren’s neck, nipped at the button between his collarbones. “Well-earned, I’m sure.”

“Depends who you ask,” Ren said, shrugging again.

“Does it? I don’t think I’ll ask, then. I prefer to find certain things out for myself,” Akechi replied, and Ren swore he leaned in closer as punctuation, swore the air between them turned keen as a dagger and hot as a brand. But one blink later and it was gone: Akechi’s posture was back to ruler-straight, his smirk swallowed by a packaged ready-for-television smile.

 _Damn_. There was no way in hell Ren was going to give up the lead this early.

“Come now, let’s get going,” Akechi said, turning on his heel and walking briskly down the upscale street. “The place really is quite popular.” 

Ren shoved his hands in his pockets as he followed, holding in a laugh when they arrived at Miel et Crêpes. He’d passed it by before, with Ryuji and Morgana when they’d first explored Kichijoji together. Morgana had even called it the perfect date spot, to Ryuji’s chagrin and Ren’s silence -- but this was _not_ a date. It was a damn boxing match, and Ren couldn’t _wait_ to step into the ring, couldn’t wait to send Akechi tumbling backwards into the ropes.

“You’re a coffee drinker, correct?” Akechi asked. “If you could get us a table, I’ll take care of our order.”

Ren nodded, biting his tongue as he let Akechi walk away without so much as clarifying his coffee order. Admittedly, he’d become a bit of a coffee snob since moving to Tokyo--he had Sojiro to thank for that--and he disliked most specialty espresso drinks, especially flavored ones. Pour-over was his go-to at cafes that served it, but bean variety and roasting style varied from place to place, and a place with a flowery logo and a French name was far from promising--

 _Focus, Amamiya_ , Ren thought, snagging the only open table and stretched his arms ‘til his knuckles hit the railing. It was hardly the time to get distracted by _coffee quality_. He thought back to scrolling Akechi’s social media stream with Ann and Ryuji, to all the photos of colorful tarts and overstuffed crepes Akechi had posted, and braced himself for whatever cup of Instagram-ready sugar foam would soon land on their table. It didn’t matter. He would chug whatever saccharine swill Akechi bought him so long as it got him talking--

When Akechi returned a moment later, he took the seat across from Ren and angled himself away from the railing, shielding his face from the crowds. He tucked his briefcase underneath his chair as a waitress appeared with two black coffees-- _thank god_ \--and two different slices of cake. She set a towering slice of mille-crepe in front of Akechi and a neat square of strawberry shortcake on top in front of Ren.

Ren’s mouth watered against his will. 

“I hope my choice is to your liking,” Akechi said, calm expression betrayed by the overt smugness in his voice.

Ren took a hasty glug of his coffee--decent, if slightly astringent--and nodded. “I want to try a bite of yours, too.”

Akechi hummed into his first sip. “I’ll consider it. The one I ordered is fairly popular. I’ve been wanting to try it.”

“Got a sweet tooth?” Ren asked. 

To his surprise, Akechi shook his head. “Well, I don’t hate sweets, but I’m not exactly partial to them. Fads tend to be fairly similar, so I’m more curious about its popularity than its taste.”

So it was an act, then. 

Whether his admission was an olive branch or a poisoned apple wasn’t clear, but Ren snatched it up all the same, held it in his hands and appraised its value. He supposed that pretending to love sweets made sense, as a choice for Akechi’s Detective Prince image. He was a carefully-curated mix of professionalism and idol glitz, equally suited for the news and the variety shows. It was easy, and it was clever -- the Detective Prince would like sweets, wouldn’t he? It was the kind of harmless charade that would endear him to fans. Younger fans would see themselves in his tastes, older fans would smile at the reminder of his youth. But why admit that so easily and confidently? Why announce that a piece of his image was naught but a reflective sheen, no different than each time Ren refracted one of his friends’ opinions back at them--

 _Oh_. Ren froze as the answer smacked against his chest. 

_I’m just like you_ , Akechi’s little confession taunted. _Don’t kid yourself. Your tricks won’t work on me._

Arsène cackled, Joker grinned; and something inside Ren roared with the familiar urge to _let go_. He spent so much time spinning circles in his mind, raking over his words before he dared to set them free. He was too damn quiet, stayed too damn still, but he was nothing if not adaptable. He didn’t keep wearing masks once they were spotted, didn’t try to force broken pieces into places they didn’t fit, and didn’t back down from fights he knew he could win -- and he could _absolutely_ beat Akechi. His fury was the answer, his fire the weapon and not the obstacle; ripping off his mirrorball mask was the one move Akechi wouldn’t see coming.

“Well, why don’t we give it a try?” Akechi asked.

Ren nodded, reached his fork across the table, and helped himself to the first bite of Akechi’s cake. 

“Hey!” Akechi exclaimed, slapping the back of Ren’s hand as he pulled it away. “Thief.” 

The word was like gunpowder on Akechi’s tongue; Ren should have scrambled backwards before his flames caught its charcoal-- 

“Try and catch me, Detective,” he said with a wink, popping the stolen bite into his mouth and setting the powderkeg ablaze. “Mmmm.” 

Akechi’s eyes widened and his shoulders tensed; Ren washed the bite down with a swig of coffee and grinned. “Sorry.”

“You’re nothing of the sort,” Akechi retorted, trying to retaliate a beat too late, stabbing his fork into the table as Ren slid his own plate out of reach.

“Got me all figured out, huh?” Ren asked, more of a jeer than a genuine question. And to his delight, it sparked an entirely different kind of fire in Akechi’s eyes as it landed. It was the look of someone who was a moment away from defeat, and it was so goddamn tantalizing, Ren almost leaned across the table and kissed him just to see what would happen. But he leaned back instead, stretched an arm overhead and straightened out his grin--

“Not yet,” Akechi finally said, words dripping from a fractured smile Ren had never seen before. “But I will.” 

Ren twirled his fork between his fingers. “Funny. I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

They ate in noisy silence for a few minutes: twin forks scraping against ceramic plates, Akechi’s heel repeatedly tapping against the table leg, Ren’s pulse thumping in his throat and Igor’s laugh ringing in his ears, deep like Arsène’s but condescending like Akechi’s. No one else reminded him of the world beyond his dreams; none of his other bonds rang with the echo of his destiny as they strengthened. The Thieves would think he’d lost his mind if he tried to explain that realm. 

Would Akechi? 

Or would he recognize the places Ren couldn’t describe?

Was he truly just like--

“Mm, it was delicious after all,” Akechi said, swiping the last bite of Ren’s cake before he could shield his plate. “I actually enjoyed that more than I thought I would.”

“Everything tastes better with the right company,” Ren said. 

Akechi kicked him under the table, caught Ren’s ankle and pulled it towards him. It was an unexpectedly physical retaliation, impulsive in a way Ren didn’t expect Akechi to indulge. Joker’s reflexes kicked in before Ren could think better of it; he trapped Akechi’s foot between his and tugged him forward, reached out a hand and squeezed his knee once it was within reach. Akechi made a broken sort of sputtering sound and slammed his hand down on top of Ren’s, pinned it beneath his palm and--

“Hey, look! Isn’t that him?” a high-pitched voice shattered their scruffle; Ren yanked his hand away as Akechi’s congenial mask clambered back over his face.

“Should we ask him for an autograph?” another voice squealed. 

“Looks like I’ve been spotted,” Akechi murmured, nearly drowned out by the excitement of the coalescing crowd. He leaned as far back as he could, hands curling into tight fists against his thighs. Ren recognized their subtle shake: his own fists did the same thing whenever the anger threatened to boil him alive, when he whitened his knuckles and marked his palms in a desperate bid to contain it. 

“I can shoo them away,” Ren tried to offer, but Akechi shook his head. 

“I don’t want to cause trouble for the store,” he said, as more voices joined the echoing bray. 

“Is someone important here?”

“Who is it? Is it a celebrity?!”

“Looks like I’m out of time,” Akechi said, bowing his head and letting his hair fall into his face. “I wish I could’ve relaxed a little longer. We should go.” 

But there was no way in hell Ren was going to let a bunch of prestige-chasing strangers snatch away his victory. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and grit his teeth. 

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” he pushed back, pleading. 

Akechi looked down at Ren as he stood up to leave. “A shame I don’t have glasses like you,” he said. “Maybe I would have been able to get out of this situation.”

Now _there_ was an idea.

Ren grinned as a plan took shape in his mind. Akechi wanted a disguise? Ren knew a thing or two about plain-sight disguises. And there was no time to hesitate, no time to contemplate the consequences -- because Akechi was about to pick up his briefcase and leave, because Ren was so _close_ to eking out a win, because he refused to let his rival’s goddamn _fans_ be the reason they parted ways for the night--

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Akechi asked, suspicion clouding his face. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Ren reached out and grabbed his hand, laced his fingers in-between Akechi’s and pulled him backwards. “Come here a sec,” he said, grinning over his shoulder as he hauled Akechi towards the door of the cafe. 

“Hey!” Akechi let out a little yelp as Ren made for the door of the cafe, but he gripped Ren’s hand tightly instead of trying to wriggle free. “What are you--” 

“Just testing your hypothesis,” Ren said with another grin, wider and more vicious in its stretch across his cheeks.

“Testing it how, exactly?” Akechi demanded, but Ren didn’t miss the hint of intrigue nestled beneath his bewilderment.

“Like this,” Ren said, dragging Akechi into the mens’ room and locking the door. He took off his glasses and slid them over the bridge of Akechi’s nose. The tips of his ears went hot and pink as Ren secured the frames’ arms, as did his face as Ren trailed its soft slope, from the top of his jaw to the tip of his chin. Honestly, it wasn’t fair: Ren’s glasses were purposefully clunky, always hanging off his face like an oversized shirt; they had no right to look that fucking _good_ on someone else. They hid the gunmetal glare of Ren’s eyes but brought out the ruby port sheen of Akechi’s; on their own, they weren’t enough of a disguise--

But Ren was pretty sure he knew what would be.

“One more step,” he said, before burying both hands in Akechi’s hair. He felt the telltale crunch of a hairspray shell as he twisted lock after lock around his thumbs, scraped his nails over Akechi’s scalp, cupped his ears while tangling his bangs. He didn’t stop until Akechi’s coiffed style resembled his own curls after a sleepless night. Frizzy. Wild.

Perfect. 

“All done,” Ren said, smiling into the heat of Akechi’s breath. “You won’t even recognize yourself.”

Akechi spun around to face the mirror, sucking in a hasty inhale as his eyes flared wild behind Ren’s glasses; Ren barely resisted the urge to wrap his arms around his waist. 

“Has anyone ever told you how pretty you are?” he asked instead, delighting in the glare it earned him through the mirror’s reflection. 

“I hope you weren’t considering a career in hairdressing,” Akechi retorted, but weakly.

He reached up like a reflex to fix his bangs, but Ren caught his hand and tugged it back down. 

“Let’s go finish our coffee,” he said, twining their fingers and guiding Akechi back to their table. 

His fans reacted instantly.

“Oh, he's back-- hey, is that boy really Akechi-kun?” 

“You know, now that I see him up close, I’m not sure.”

“I’m pretty sure he didn’t look like that.”

Ren grinned as the crowd dissipated. “Hm. How about that?”

Akechi stared at him a moment, expression vacant. “I can’t believe you actually did that,” he said, fury and something resembling awe braided into his voice. Ren squeezed his hand; Akechi dropped it into his lap like he’d forgotten he was holding it, then busied both of his hands with smoothing his hair.

“Stop that,” Ren chided. “You don’t want to get recognized again, right?”

“I’ll take my chances,” Akechi grumbled, taking off Ren’s glasses and fiddling with his bangs. “I suppose I’d better learn to watch what I say around you.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Ren said, staring down at the glasses, folded neatly on top of a napkin. It was the longest he’d gone without wearing them since arriving in Tokyo. Only the Thieves had seen him without them, and only in the Metaverse, where Joker’s mask sat comfortably in their place--

“Is that right?” Akechi asked, raising his eyebrows. “All the more reason I should.”

Ren picked up his glasses and tucked them back into place. “I should’ve taken a picture.”

Akechi laughed, but it was clipped, more of a bark than a giggle. “Are you familiar with the legal right to portrait? Or privacy?”

“Some risks are worth taking,” Ren said with a shrug, not missing a beat.

A hint of a laugh twitched across Akechi's face, but his eyes were as contrary as ever: narrowed and scheming, serious and shining. “I suppose you’re right,” he said, palming his half-full mug and spinning it in its saucer. “There’s no knowing how things may go unless you give them a try, hm?”

Then he reached his hand under the table and squeezed Ren’s thigh. It was slow and deliberate, nothing like their earlier tussle; Ren momentarily lost all the fucking oxygen in his lungs. 

“I’ve learned a valuable lesson today,” Akechi continued, patting the side of Ren’s leg twice before withdrawing his hand, fingertips sweeping all the way to Ren’s knee before vanishing. “Thank you.”

Ren said nothing, not because he was holding back his words but because he had no goddamn idea how to react. The move was more of a counterattack than an escalation, but it was terrifying how quickly Akechi had modified his strategy, how _easily_ he’d knocked Ren down when moments ago he was the one swaying. It was thrilling in a way that should’ve felt dangerous, should’ve silenced their bond instead of striking up its song--

“Our coffees have gone cold,” Akechi said, looking down at Ren’s cup. “Why don’t we order new ones?”

“I’d never turn down more coffee,” Ren said, coaxing neutrality back onto his face as Akechi let a little smile ford across his. 

_Or more time with you._

The thought lingered as Akechi sauntered back into the cafe, taunted Ren with its implications, its threats and its promises. How far into the shadows would he plunge his hands in the name of their bond? Ren was after Akechi but Akechi was _after_ Ren, wanted to choke the justice out of his throat and hand him breathless to the fucking cops; he’d seen the distortions of the Metaverse for himself but had the audacity to target the Thieves instead of society’s rot. 

_Why?_

Maybe Ren was the audacious one, knowing what he knew but chasing more answers anyway, cocky enough to trust that Akechi lied in the same ways he did, that he felt the same thrum in his nerves, the same shiver in his gut when he looked at Ren. Reckless enough to guarantee that whatever stretched between them was worth more than the sum of its pieces: more than a bud of romance or a bloom of lust, more than their feud or their infernal fury. Maybe Akechi _would_ break his heart in the end, would snap their bond like a twig or unspool it like yarn; maybe their flames would consume each other whole, strip them down to their ashen shadows and scatter them into the wind. 

But maybe, if they dug down to the tenebrous depths of their rivalry, they'd find their true fight, facing not each other but the ruin Igor espoused each time Ren woke up in the Velvet Room. It was nothing but a fantasy, the delusional flight of a man who otherwise dreamt of his own subconscious in chains, and yet--

Was it really so foolish to think--to hope--there was one other empty soul who carried the weight of impending ruin on his shoulders? 

Who was winding his own way towards the same unknown fate?

“I got their house blend this time,” Akechi announced, calm and composed, startling Ren with his even keel. “You’ll have to tell me which cup you prefer.”

All Ren could do was nod. 

The evening only grew more bizarre from there: somewhere in-between their first and last sips, the conversation turned downright _calm_ , and the air between them shed its stormcloud frenzy for breezy banter. Akechi seemed -- well, not carefree, exactly, but certainly far more relaxed than just a few moments prior. He let his posture sag, leaned one elbow on the table, rested his chin in his hand and told stories in a voice that was contoured but not polished, closer to the coarseness Ren remembered from the alleyway than his airwaves-ready tone. He hadn’t flashed his television smile since the waitress dropped off their second coffees, and even though Ren kept waiting for the conversation to turn towards the Phantom Thieves, it never did. 

Ren’s mind went to terrible places when things were calm; it seemed that was one more thing they had in common. 

Maybe it was because they’d already gotten the information they sought; Ren certainly had. Nothing he could’ve reported to the Thieves, of course, but the next time they squared off, Ren was ready for Akechi’s sneaky pliancy, not just his outward rigidity. Their connection was deeper, the glow of their bond brighter, and if Ren was right--if Akechi really did feel its pull, too--then maybe the rest of the evening was nothing but a mutually selfish indulgence. Maybe, after they’d exhausted themselves trading blows and setting traps, they were left with nothing but desperation to turn human for a night, instead of an idol under the spotlight and a pariah in a plaid uniform. 

Maybe that was why they wound their fingers together under the table but didn’t acknowledge it with pressure nor posit, why they talked until their mugs were drained and blotchy with the dredges of an hour that felt illegally languid, deceptively soft. Why, when they finally rose from their seats and parted ways, they didn’t embrace, didn’t call anything but the late hour by name before walking in opposite directions down the street, leaving Ren’s head spinning and his heart thumping with an uninvited candor.

He _wanted_ this. All of it. Wanted Akechi as much as he wanted his secrets, wanted to kiss him as badly as he wanted to unmask him, wanted to hold him as fiercely as he wanted to win--

***

 **Direct message between Ren Amamiya and Goro Akechi**  
>>Goro: Hello, Amamiya-kun. I apologize for bothering you so soon after parting ways.  
>>Ren: always so formal  
>>Ren: i suppose it’s part of your charm  
>>Goro: Haha!  
>>Goro: But it’s a shame our discussion was interrupted today.  
>>Goro: I was rather enjoying having a breather with you.  
>>Ren: oh were you?  
>>Goro: Is that so surprising?  
>>Goro: Although you certainly surprised me. I can’t believe we got out of that with such a basic trick.  
>>Ren: it was your idea  
>>Goro: Haha. That’s exactly what I mean.  
>>Goro: I saw firsthand what happens when I’m careless with my words around you.  
>>Ren: oh come on, it was fun  
>>Goro: ...you have a twisted concept of “fun.”  
>>Ren: heh. maybe  
>>Goro: Hm.  
>>Ren: ?  
>>Goro: If you dressed as me next time, I think I might agree with you.  
>>Ren: excuse me?  
>>Goro: I could use a stunt double.  
>>Ren: a stunt double  
>>Goro: You and I aren’t terribly different in height.  
>>Goro: I’m sure my clothes would fit you.  
>>Ren: your… clothes?  
>>Ren: you want to dress me up?  
>>Goro: Today’s incident was far too haphazard. We got lucky.  
>>Goro: If we do this, it’ll have to be carefully planned. I’ll be dictating everything, from hair to accessories.  
>>Ren: got a particular outfit in mind?  
>>Goro: No. It’s not about the outfit, per se. It’s about the control :)  
>>Goro: Only kidding, of course.  
>>Ren: and i’m the twisted one??  
>>Goro: I said I was kidding!  
>>Ren: you did say that  
>>Ren: but more importantly  
>>Ren: what’s this you said about a next time?  
>>Goro: Whoops... I’ve an early start tomorrow, so I’ll have to excuse myself.  
>>Goro: See you soon, Amamiya-kun :)


	7. show me your true form

“What are you waiting for?” Morgana asked, jumping onto Ren’s chest the moment his back hit the mattress. “We should send the calling card as soon as possible. Everyone’s really anxious, you know?”

Ren sighed, trying in vain to dislodge Morgana’s claws from his collarbones. He knew. He was anxious too, wanted nothing more than to strike at Kaneshiro until he groveled for forgiveness at his feet, to bind his unmoored shadow to the chains of its newfound justice. Every day the Thieves didn’t send their calling card was another day that Kaneshiro terrorized the streets of Shibuya unencumbered, claiming more victims and stealing more futures.

The issue was Akechi, and the knowledge he could gain if Ren didn’t time this takedown perfectly. Akechi, whose eyes were all Ren saw every time he closed his own in the hours since leaving Miel et Crepês, who was undoubtedly furious that Ren hadn’t dropped a single hint about when the Phantom Thieves were likely to return to Kaneshiro's palace. Ren was almost certain Akechi didn’t yet understand how the Phantom Thieves pulled off their heists, and he needed to keep it that way to keep the Thieves out of danger, to keep Akechi’s investigation focused solely on himself. It was all over if Akechi followed them into his palace again; when they struck Kaneshiro, they needed the cover of secrecy they didn’t have, needed darkness, needed a night when Akechi would have reason to believe nothing would happen--

Ren grinned, sat up straight and reached for his phone.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Morgana yelped. “Don’t you know what time it is? I didn’t mean _now_ \--”

 **absolutely not the phantom thieves’ group chat**  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: anyone still awake?  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: you know it  
>>Ann✮Chan: yeah, i can’t sleep  
>>Fist! Of! Justice!: Kaneshiro is once again “blowing up my phone,” as Ryuji called it, so yes, I am awake.  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: I, too, am awake. Why do you ask, Ren?  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: well  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: what would you guys say if i said we should send the calling card tonight  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: renren are you kidding i’d say hELL YEAH  
>>Fist! Of! Justice!: Hold on. What exactly are you thinking?  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: i’m thinking that this mafia is dangerous  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: and also that the cops are likely monitoring kaneshiro for their own organized crime investigations  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: so we shouldn’t give either of them time to react to us, right?  
>>Fist! Of! Justice!: An interesting point. Go on.  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: it’s saturday night and we know he's awake since he's texting makoto  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: if we plaster the calling card all around shibuya now, he's basically guaranteed to hear about it tonight  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: meaning we could strike first thing tomorrow morning, before the cops can respond to any reported phantom thieves/calling card sightings, and before the mafia takes any preventative measures against kaneshiro  
>>Ann✮Chan: i think that’s a great idea ren!!  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: youre damn right it is LETS DOOO THIS  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: I am pleased to say that I have already completed the calling card. How could I not, when Kaneshiro’s vile shadow positively  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: begged for my brush? I believe you’ll all find that my strokes reflect my passion more than ever in this piece. But my dorm  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: has a curfew. Since I have already returned home for the night, I will be unable to assist with the dissemination upon the dirty streets.  
>>Ann✮Chan: does yusuke hear himself when he talks?  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: What do you mean?  
>>Fist! Of! Justice!: It appears not.  
>>Fist! Of! Justice!: To get back on topic, I think this plan could work. It’s not without risks, but they’re risks I am willing to take.  
>>Fist! Of! Justice!: Sis does not appear to be coming home from work tonight. I should be able to leave and return unnoticed.  
>>Fist! Of! Justice!: Kosei's dorms are not too far from where we live, so I can pick up the calling card first.  
>>I’m doing this for *art*: I would be most grateful.  
>>Ann✮Chan: i can help too! my parents are out of the country again rn  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: i’ll sneak out too  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: no fuckin way i’m gonna miss this  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: great.  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: the trains haven’t stopped yet. go now, take cash with you for cab rides home, and i’ll reimburse you with mementos cash tomorrow  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: we’ll meet at 7 AM sharp at the hideout  
>>Ann✮Chan: you got it, leader~  
>>Fist! Of! Justice!: Ann, Ryuji, I’ll meet you in Shibuya in 30 minutes with the calling card. Dress as inconspicuous as possible and wear something that covers your hair if you can.  
>>”That” Sakamoto-kun: leave it to us renren, we won’t let ya down!!!!  
>>Delinquent Transfer Student: you all are amazing. seriously. 

***

Shadow Kaneshiro was about to blow Ren’s fucking cover.

Fighting him had been too damn easy, and that alone should have been a sign. It was never physical power that gave guys like Kaneshiro control in reality; it was their knowledge and the cruel ways in which they honed it, sharpened it, dangled it between the eyes of everyone it could destroy. So Ren should’ve known that the final blow wouldn't come until after they’d knocked Kaneshiro on his back, until he was panting and heaving but refusing to fade, until the distortion they’d defeated crept back across his face in a condescending sneer. 

He _laughed_ as he reclined against his treasure, clinging to his gold instead of eschewing it in shame. Just like Madarame, he wouldn’t stop talking, but the fear and sorrow that colored Madarame’s final words were entirely absent from Kaneshiro’s. Nothing about him was apologetic or guilty; instead, he seemed downright smug, like he couldn’t resist slurping down one last skinny victory before seeking his forced repentance. Instead it was Ren whose face was wrenched with fear, who was silently begging his own damn target not to spill the name they both knew was on his tongue--

“I’ll let you in on a little something,” Kaneshiro said. “There’s a criminal using other people’s Palaces to accomplish whatever they damn well please.”

Someone murmured the words _black mask_ , and someone else was shouting, demanding an explanation--Ren couldn't tell who--but Kaneshiro simply laughed again, no trace of remorse remaining on his sniveling face; it took all of Ren’s remaining strength to keep his own bitter laughter clamped behind his teeth. Here he was again, the man in the black mask, lingering on the minds of the criminals whose treasures _Ren_ stole, whose distorted desires _Ren_ ripped out of their twisted souls. Twice now, thanks to him, their targets’ last words weren’t of repentance, and their final actions were nervous glances over their shoulders, looking not at Ren but for someone else.

No.

Not for someone else. For _Akechi_.

“They don’t care about consequences,” Kaneshiro continued. “Psychotic breakdowns, mental shutdowns? Anything goes.”

Everyone else froze; Ren tried his best to mimic their shock. He borrowed Ann’s stiffened posture, Yusuke’s widened eyes, Makoto’s dropped jaw, anything to tether him down to the present, to the palace, to the teammates at his side and the treasure within his reach. The clatter of Akechi’s old words muffled every sound in the room, grazed their teeth across Ren’s earlobes and wound their fingers around his throat, more forthright and _honest_ than Ren had ever realized. He wasn’t working for the fucking cops at all, and he sure as hell wasn’t circling Ren for a simple investigation--

 _The matter of how they change people’s hearts_ , he’d said during their little debate. _If they honestly possess that ability, it could be used for more than extracting confessions. It could be that what seem to be ordinary crimes are actually being perpetrated by these methods._

“You’re nothing compared to them,” Kaneshiro said, swallowing Akechi’s voice with his own. “Better be careful. A chance encounter with them could prove fatal.”

The palace shook as he finally faded; Morgana transformed and Ren took the driver’s seat while the others filled the trunk with gold bars. His vision clouded red as he slammed down on the gas pedal, stray cinders drying on his tongue as they fell back into reality and careened into the rush-hour crowds of Shibuya. His bond with Akechi was hot against his heart, filling up his treacherous chest like it was somehow growing larger, like the perilous revelation had brought them somehow closer, and _that_ was an entirely different level of fucked-up altogether.

Everyone else wanted to go back to Leblanc, wanted to debrief on their win and on what came next, Ren didn’t have it in him to argue nor to listen. He set up his folding table and dragged up extra chairs, folded himself like a card at the waist and waited for everyone's eyes to fall on the things he'd been hiding. But it didn't come -- only Ann and Yusuke tried to bring up Shadow Kaneshiro’s last words. Ren dug his knuckles into his thigh, into the same spot Akechi squeezed just a day ago, and closed his eyes until the conversation passed without a mention of his name. 

***

“How long do you intend to lay there, inmate?” 

“I won’t repeat myself again. Our Master wishes to speak with you.” 

_I’ll bet he does_ , Ren thought, blinking into the glow of the Velvet Room with a resigned shudder. One of the many strange things about the Velvet Room was how much his body hurt every time when he woke up within it. He was always injured, too: bloodstains mottled the white stripes of his prisoner’s garb, bruises dotted across his skin and phantom pulses echoed across the hollows of his cheeks. It all reminded Ren a little too much of the wounds he’d nursed after his arrest, of the split lip and the black eye from the cop who’d taken his fear out on Ren, who’d landed what felt like one hit for every word the drunken man called out.

 _The state of this room reflects the state of your own heart_ , Igor told him the first time they met, trying to signal surprise without a drop of it to be found in his voice. Ren wasn’t sure how he was meant to react; he wasn’t surprised either, but it didn’t feel safe to admit that in this strange new place, to these strange new faces staring at him like they were waiting for him to put on a show. His first instinct was to rattle his cell’s bars, and his second was to throw his head backwards and laugh until he lost his breath. Of course his heart was a goddamn prison; he’d spent a lifetime stuffing his unwieldy feelings into the divots of its chambers, locking every messy, broken piece of himself away and leaving them all to rot--

He rose from his lumpy cot and dragged himself towards the locked door, focused his bellicose gaze on Igor’s smile. This was part of their deal, or it felt like that, anyway: Igor talked and Ren listened, Ren tossed out questions and Igor didn’t answer them, Igor laughed and Ren woke up in Leblanc, exhausted and angry. He sucked in a fistful of velvetine air and waited, lungs rattling with smoldering coals, breath hissing with the longing of their embers. Igor granted him the use of macabre rituals but taught him nothing of their origins; he helped him expand his mask’s capacity without revealing so much as a sliver of his own identity. Sometimes Ren swore he felt their bond beating not within his heart but inside the knots of its shackles--

“Do you recall the whispers about that strange man?” Igor asked, and the embers caught fire all over again; Ren’s posture puffed as he absorbed the question. 

Whispers. _Whispers_. Did Igor take him for a pathetic child? For a damn fool? Did he really think so little of Ren that he thought he would’ve _missed_ Akechi’s screw-up in the station hallway? That he would have simply _glossed over_ such an obvious contraction, glossed over every hubristic deplay Akechi beamed at him underneath his smiles? Did he think Ren was content to snuffle the breadcrumbs Igor scattered, to stand around waiting to be told what to do? Did he think someone as competitive as Ren wouldn’t try his damndest to win the very game Igor kept telling him to play? 

“The other Metaverse user?” Ren asked, sarcasm dripping into his tone as he spoke. “Yeah. I recall.”

“Don’t sound so cocky about it!” Caroline snapped, slamming her baton against Ren’s knuckles, huffing as he yanked them backwards with a grunt.

Justine shook her head as she glanced back at Igor, as cool-toned and calm as her sister was electric. “This is about those cases of those people who shut down, is it not?”

“Indeed,” Igor said, gaze skimming the tops of the twins’ heads as he looked at Ren with something resembling amusement. “I speak of another with powers similar to yours.”

Something rough and dense seized up inside Ren’s stomach, something that had no right to feel as hopeful as it did. Maybe Ren was the hubristic one after all, daring to react with something besides his usual rage. But if there was one thing that Igor always made clear, it was that Ren’s powers were unlike the powers of the Thieves. Igor always granted them access to the Nav after their awakenings, but he’d never once compared their power of persona to Ren's; Ren was the Trickster while they were merely collaborators. But here he was, calling the black masked man’s--calling _Akechi’s_ \--powers similar, all but confirming that Akechi was everything Ren sensed him to be, that his soul was aflame behind the plastic veneer of the Detective Prince, that the bubbling lava Ren saw in his eyes wasn’t just his own reflection. Their bond ignited behind his breastbone, burned incandescent in the cavern of his chest, brought a wisp of a mirthless smile to Ren's face as he stood--

“If you are to complete your rehabilitation, you may encounter him eventually,” Igor continued, laughing to himself. “One more thing for me to look forward to.”

It was a strange thing to say. Admittedly, Igor often said strange things, liked to leave Ren’s head spinning as he stretched back towards reality as their visits came to an end. But this one stuck in the pad of his thumb like a thorn: why, exactly, would Igor be looking forward to what sounded like a foretold battle with Akechi? His muted thrill shivered down Ren’s arms, pricked across his palms as he squeezed them into fists. Igor loved speaking in riddles, opining about ruin and rehabilitation without bothering to define either term, like he expected Ren to barge across a chessboard like the pawn he sometimes felt like, not for his own justice but for someone else’s mission he didn’t fully understand. 

As if a pawn, sent alone across the board, could fell a king. 

Ren supposed that was where his allies were meant to come in: Joker could fight shadows by himself, suck them into his mask or send them back to the Sea of Souls, but he couldn’t steal hearts solo like the Phantom Thieves could as a team. They strengthened him, recharged him, flanked him as he approached his enemies, watched his back and guarded against his most reckless impulses. So perhaps it was the same in this case, too. Perhaps the pawn could only strike when it wore the masks of its strongest soldiers, when it donned the crown of the king it was meant to topple. 

But could it really be Akechi who was waiting for him at the other end of the board? How could the bond that made Ren feel most alive, most human, most connected to another soul be the one he’d have to snap to stay alive?

Maybe Ren had his metaphors all wrong. Maybe they were playing checkers, not chess; maybe he had to capture Akechi to flip him, had to pin him down and peel the truth from the slivers of his defeat before Igor’s prophecies could run clear off his tongue. Maybe they both had to cross the board to be kinged themselves, to garner their power and take on the impending ruin together. Maybe whatever criminal enterprise Akechi was mixed up in held the key to their fight; maybe the road to Ren’s victory relied on understanding Akechi’s justice as deeply as he understood his own.

Or maybe he was chasing a future that would never come to pass, chasing someone who was never meant to be _his_ at all.

All Ren really knew was this: Akechi was his enemy and Akechi was his key, and he would chase Akechi’s darkness to its smoldering core without looking back, would face whatever shadows he found there head-on, would push through to the other side and pray that Akechi made it out, too. If that was the vow of a criminal, so be it. Certainty thumped in Ren’s pulse like a drum: he would live up to his damn reputation if it killed him, would liberate the truth from the brink of ruin even if only his justice survived its onslaught. For the society that scorned him and the friends that stood by his side, for the shadows he slayed and the hearts that he stole, for the rival who’d already captured his own--

“I’m looking forward to it, too,” Ren said, livid and enthralled as he closed his eyes, disintegrating back into reality before Igor could reply. 

***

Makoto called the next morning with news. Her sister’s team had enacted some sort of covert operation; Kaneshiro was officially in protective custody, and a strict gag order was in place for all those involved in the sting. A public-facing operation, to clean up his mafia subordinates and publicly announce the high-profile arrest, was being planned for an unknown date in early July. The Thieves, once again, had to play the part of honest students, normal teenagers who certainly weren’t waiting on the edges of their seats for the story to break on the evening news. 

Ren kept quiet, thanked her for the info and ended the call before the conversation could wander somewhere he didn’t want to tread. He wondered if Akechi was among those in the know about the arrest. Had the cops made the connection to the Phantom Thieves? How convincing had Akechi been at feigning surprise, if they pulled him into a meeting and plotted out their half-baked theories onto a whiteboard? Had he excused himself for a moment to duck into an empty hallway and dial whoever it was that he actually worked for? Or had he kept it to himself?

Ren desperately needed to see Akechi again, but texting him only yielded an infuriatingly pleasant greeting, followed by an apology for being too busy with schoolwork to talk. _Schoolwork_. Ren was almost insulted, but he couldn’t push the issue; he packed up his schoolbag with a sigh and trudged through Yongenjaya towards the train. 

It was damn near impossible to focus in class: gossip about the Phantom Thieves’ presence in Shibuya filtered like dust through the Shujin hallways, settled onto the rows of desks and squeaked in the drag of chalk against the blackboard. Ren hid behind his books and listened, nervous and eager and proud of what he heard:

“This time they’re targeting that mafia boss,” someone whispered. 

“What are the Phantom Thieves trying to achieve?” another asked. 

“I guess they’d want to show up Akechi-kun after he said those things on TV,” someone said. 

_You’re damn right we do_ , Ren thought, flipping his pencil between his fingers.

Clearly the police hadn’t cleared their calling cards fast enough. 

He tried to keep busy, filling the rest of his day with the most distracting things he could think of: gulping down another heavy dose of clinical trial medication in Takemi’s office after school, and letting its lingering side effects wear off under the calming pink light of Crossroads that evening. Crossroads felt like -- well, not home, exactly, but like a place where the only mask he had to wear was anonymity, like somewhere people were allowed to be tired and bitter and _themselves_ without being identified, where everything from his delinquency to his bisexuality was neither questioned nor assumed. And Ohya reminded Ren a lot of himself: she sought refuge from her own anger at Lala’s bar, let it melt with the ice in her highballs the same way Ren swirled his own into pour-overs at Leblanc. He didn’t let his guard down during their conversation, but neither did he don the armor he wore when dealing with most of the adults in his life. He just let her talk, let the din of the bar garble the questions he didn’t want to answer, and let himself take a few deep breaths when the conversation fell quiet. 

“You must learn a lot spending time in bars,” Morgana whispered in amazement as patron after unique patron stumbled into the room. They found their stools like they were desks assigned in a classroom, picked up mid-story with Lala like she’d tucked a bookmark into their last conversation. 

“I’d love to work somewhere like this,” Ren murmured to Morgana as Ohya demanded another refill.

“Oh?” Lala asked, pivoting mid-pour towards Ren without spilling a drop. “I’m looking for a part-timer, if you’re interested.” 

“How did she hear you?” Morgana exclaimed. “I guess she thought you were actually serio--”

“I’m definitely interested,” Ren said before Morgana could finish. He was itching to quit the conbini, anyway -- wasn’t sure he was still on their payroll, even, given how many shifts he’d no-call-no-showed. He still liked working at the flower shop, but they didn’t let him work at night, and it was during the evenings that Ren’s mind was most active, most anxious, most desperate for distraction. He liked the idea of having somewhere to be, of being paid to practice playing mirror for strangers like he already did for all of his friends. Of getting to be some sort of honest about himself without broadcasting the choice, of owning some fragments of his fractured identity without putting any of them at risk. 

“Come back tomorrow and I’ll show you the ropes. But for now,” she said, glaring as Ohya nudged her glass towards Ren with a grin, “it’s time for you to be heading home.” 

“You seriously want to be a bartender?” Morgana asked, snickering as they walked back towards the station.

“Don’t you think I’d be good at it?” Ren mimicked mixing a cocktail with his schoolbag; Morgana made a strangled sort of retching sound as the bag shook. “Everyone already pours their heart out to me.” 

Morgana groaned. “You’re so humble.”

“Not a required trait for a bartender, so I’m good there, too,” Ren said with a grin. 

They went back the following night as agreed. Ohya was conspicuously absent, and Lala looked a little surprised that Ren actually showed, but she quickly covered it up, smiling as she beckoned him behind the bar.

“Have you had a job like this before?” she asked. 

Ren nodded. “I’m a barista.”

“An unpaid barista in a cafe that never has any customers,” Morgana muttered from inside Ren’s bag; Ren silenced him with an elbow through the canvas. 

“You’ll be just fine, then,” Lala said, and Ren resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at Morgana out of spite.

She handed him an apron and they got to work. Ren took to it instantly; the intricacies of serving alcohol were remarkably similar to brewing coffee. Weights and measures held equal importance, the strength and flavor profiles of individual bottles were key when it came to determining how best to serve them, and the end product made people happy, calmed their nerves, gave them energy and courage. And Morgana was right: the patrons were a wealth of information. No wonder Ohya made this her go-to spot, Ren thought. It was a journalist’s paradise -- and a Phantom Thief’s. People both name-dropped individuals that merited Mementos missions and whispered confidential industry gossip that Ren thought might just point them towards future big targets. He filed away everything he learned while smiling at girls and guys alike without anyone batting an eye, and everyone assumed he belonged there simply because he’d walked through its doors. And when his shift finally ended, and he stepped back out into the pulsating after-midnight Shinjuku crowd, Ren felt _great_ : charming and confident, capable and charismatic. Like he’d learned how to let Joker out in the real world in ways that were previously impossible, like several sides of himself had reconciled and strengthened. 

It was honestly pretty incredible. 

He carried that feeling onto the train and up to his room, actually managing a decent night’s sleep for the first time in recent memory. He carried it still into school the next day, dodging the chalk Ushimaru whipped at his forehead like it was a bullet in the Metaverse. He even carried it right past Sojiro that evening, grabbing the $100/lb Kopi Lewak beans for his evening coffee like Sojiro’s eyes weren’t bugging out of his damn head. He held a mouthful of the brew on his tongue, let its crema melt like caramel into his tastebuds as his eyes wandered to the television. Sojiro usually had it tuned to the news or the evening variety shows, but that night, Phoenix Rangers: Neo Featherman was on in their place. Ren recognized the show from ads on the subway. 

“She loves this show,” Sojiro murmured as he rinsed a siphon; Ren wasn’t sure if he meant to speak out loud. 

“Who does?” he asked, but Sojiro only shook his head. He busied himself with stirring the curry and stealing glances at the screen when he thought Ren wasn’t paying attention. 

Ren had never watched Featherman before, not even as a child, but the over-the-top episode pulled him in immediately. _I Want a Love So Strong, It’ll Bring Me Back From the Dead!_ , its title screen shouted in bold after a choreographed intro. The plot was campy, but the acting was strong, and Ren watched the whole ridiculous episode with rapt attention, barely noticing when Sojiro bid him goodnight or when Morgana fell asleep on his barstool. Something about the way the group of heroes fought reminded Ren of the Phantom Thieves -- their determination, maybe, or their refusal to give up in the face of danger. 

And he rather liked the red one’s mask, he thought with a grin as his phone buzzed on the counter.

 **Direct message between Ren Amamiya and Goro Akechi**  
>>Goro: Good evening, Amamiya-kun.  
>>Ren: hiya detective-kun  
>>Goro: Please stop calling me that.  
>>Ren: prince-kun, then?  
>>Goro: Goodness, that’s even worse.  
>>Goro: I just wanted to say hello. What are you up to tonight?  
>>Ren: i just finished watching featherman with my cat  
>>Goro: Ah! What did you think of the episode?  
>>Ren: i liked it. did you watch it too?  
>>Goro: Yes, I’ve been watching on my phone while I’m at work. But really, you liked it?  
>>Goro: Personally, I can’t see how they’ll sustain this plotline for the rest of the season.  
>>Goro: Are we really expected to believe that something as ridiculous as “love” could bring another back to life?  
>>Goro: Even children could see through something so ludicrous. Don’t you agree?  
>>Ren: nah, i think it’s a fun plot twist  
>>Ren: but it’s kind of adorable how angry it makes you  
>>Goro: Adorable?  
>>Goro: You’re mocking me.  
>>Ren: would i do something like that?  
>>Goro: Yes, you would.  
>>Goro: But I suppose the Detective Prince shouldn’t like Featherman, should he?  
>>Ren: dunno about the detective prince, but goro akechi can like whatever he wants  
>>Goro: Funny you should say that.  
>>Goro: I’m actually filming a special on some of my supposed favorite places tonight.  
>>Ren: supposed favorites?  
>>Goro: It’s completely fake. I’ve never patronized any of these establishments.  
>>Goro: They just paid a hefty sponsorship fee to be featured.  
>>Goro: So, in fact, Goro Akechi cannot like whatever he wants. At least not when it comes to dessert cafes and coffeeshops.  
>>Goro: The media can be quite dishonest. It’s unwise to blindly trust what you hear.  
>>Ren: noted  
>>Ren: i like hearing you talk like this  
>>Goro: Haha. Is that so?  
>>Goro: You really say the strangest things.  
>>Goro: I do enjoy chatting with you too.  
>>Goro: Would you perhaps like to go back to that cafe tomorrow?  
>>Ren: mm, i have an idea  
>>Goro: Oh?  
>>Ren: wanna go to inokashira park first? we can go to the cafe afterwards.  
>>Goro: Inokashira Park, hm?  
>>Goro: That sounds rather nice. Yes, let’s do that.  
>>Ren: 2 PM?  
>>Goro: 2 PM. Looking forward to it.  
>>Goro: Sorry, looks like it’s time to resume filming.  
>>Goro: See you tomorrow :)

Ren set his phone face-down on the counter and turned towards Morgana, who was wide awake and staring with a heavy grimace twisted behind his whiskers. “So--”

Morgana cut him off immediately. “Let me guess. You’re going somewhere with Akechi tomorrow and I won’t want to tag along.”

Ren carried his dishes to the sink and started scrubbing. “Yeah. Look, I--”

“Can I talk?” Morgana asked, climbing halfway up the staircase and looking down at Ren.

Ren nodded as Morgana arched his back, dangled his paws over the edges of the steps. 

“If you want to keep seeing Akechi, I won’t interfere,” he said. “He’s a valuable source of intel. But he’s a detective investigating the Phantom Thieves. Investigating you. Don’t let things get too dangerous, okay?” 

_We passed too dangerous a palace ago_ , Ren didn’t reply. 

***

Ren arrived at Inokashira Park a few minutes past two, caffeine-deprived and exhausted. He hadn’t fallen asleep until sunrise, and hadn’t woken up until Sojiro’s lunch rush was in full swing. It was so damn hot and even more humid; his hair was messier than usual and drops of sweat were already slipping down the nape of his neck. He spotted Akechi leaning against the banister of a staircase, way too dressed up for a walk in the park, but his normally-coiffed hair was delightfully casual, pulled back behind his ears into a loose ponytail. His trademark briefcase was missing, too; instead, he held two cans of coffee. Ren had never seen Akechi do _anything_ different with his appearance by his own hand, not on any of their prior outings and not on television. He always wore the same prim clothes, always had his hair intricately styled, never a detail out of place nor a crack in the veneer. 

So even the smallest of changes was--

Well. 

Unexpected. 

“Hello, Amamiya-kun.” Akechi held one of the coffees out towards Ren as he approached; fat beads of condensation trickled down its sides. “I’m conducting a little experiment.”

Ren took the coffee and popped it open, chugged it immediately to try and pacify the uninvited fluttering in his stomach. “You’re doing what now?” he asked, wiping a stray droplet from the corner of his lip. 

Akechi took a small, delicate sip of his own, grinned over the top of the can like he was in a damn Starvicks commercial. “Our little cafe misadventure proved just how shallow the general populace can be, correct?” he asked. “Change one or two little things about my appearance, and the Detective Prince gains the power of invisibility. I’m simply seeing how far that extends.”

“Or you could just admit that you pulled your hair back because it’s warm outside,” Ren teased, wearing his best imitation of Akechi’s TV smile as he tucked a stray lock behind Akechi’s ear.

Akechi glared at him as his ear went hot and pink, and Ren did his best to memorize the mesmerizing expression before Akechi took it away, before he buried it back beneath the impression of neutrality he was trying to perform. 

“I simply figured to explain my reasoning since you were so obviously surprised,” he said, eyes crinkling as he conjured a smile. “You did stare at me for an unseemly amount of time.”

Ren tucked his already-empty coffee can into his bag, looked at Akechi and grinned, brushed his fingertips over Akechi’s before shoving both hands into his pockets. “Did I? Can’t imagine why.”

“I’ve got a few theories,” Akechi said, eyes shining in the sunlight. “Come now. Let’s take a walk, shall we?”

They raced up the staircase--no one said it was a race, exactly, but Ren wasn’t about to lose once Akechi started taking the steps two at a time--and settled into a more languorous pace once they reached the walking trails. Ren steered them towards the one he preferred, a winding little side-trail that crept along the water, sparsely populated but densely packed with trees.  
Akechi was quiet as they walked, and Ren drank in every little microexpression that washed over his face, couldn’t _wait_ to see what Akechi came up with once he finally spoke, what scraps of rumor he’d tease like feathers across Ren’s skin. Ren didn’t have any questions of his own, didn’t really even have a plan for the day beyond the park. More generally, he knew what he needed to do, had no goddamn idea how to do it, but hell if he wasn’t going to try. He needed to show Akechi that when he held his hand, he meant it, that even though Joker was determined to beat the man in the black mask, Ren Amamiya was just as determined to stand at Goro Akechi’s side--

“I like to bike here sometimes,” Akechi finally said after a few more paces, breaking his silence as he looked over at Ren. “Do you have a bike?”

“Yeah,” Ren said, gritting his teeth before _back in my hometown_ slipped out between them. 

Akechi didn’t know the circumstances behind his move to Tokyo, or at least, Ren hadn’t told him yet. No doubt he’d already used his police connections to run a background check--probably did that the second he matched Joker’s face to Ren’s name--and no doubt he already knew that Ren carried a record, that he was at the mercy of a system that betrayed him, that his future was over even before he took upon the Metaverse to serve up the justice society never would. Really, there was no telling what all Akechi had already uncovered, if whoever he worked for was as well-connected as the cops--

 _Handle this so my name doesn’t come up at all_.

The unexpected flashback lurched from Ren’s stomach and lodged in his throat, scratched at his ears and dragged him backwards, out of Inokashira Park and back into the night when the drunken man slurred them, when he was still a man stumbling on the street and not a spectre bobbing in Ren’s mind. That sort of secret was the kind someone had to know in order to keep it hidden, had to pass along to others as powerful as his accuser, others who were important enough to be in the know. 

If Akechi ever admitted that he knew his fucking name--

Ren seethed at the thought, lost his focus as the words kicked around in his windpipe. He would do damn near anything to sink his teeth into that name, to plug it into the Nav and dive headfirst into the palace that was all but certain to pop up. It was as simple as this: when Ren needed rescuing, no one cared enough to come for him. When he was sinking, no one jumped in the water and hauled him to shore. There was nothing Ren could do about his past without that name, but someone, be it god or demon, gave _him_ a chance to steal other people’s futures back from the distorted society that swallowed them. Gave _him_ a chance to awaken Arsène, to turn his barren soul into a weapon, to mold his rage into bullets for his gun--

“Lovely! We could go for a ride together sometime, if you’d like,” Akechi offered, voice pitched up into something that almost sounded like genuine excitement, resting a tentative hand on Ren’s shoulder. 

Ren took a deep breath as Akechi’s touch turned into a squeeze, did his best to banish the seeping anger back into the trenches of his gut. He couldn’t get distracted when he was so close; it was impossible _not_ to get distracted when Akechi was standing so damn close. Could Akechi feel the tangibility of their bond, too, if his powers really were similar to Ren’s? Did he sense when it strengthened, feel its pull when it stretched? Did his chest warm like Ren’s did when it glowed while they talked? Did he feel the same soft vibrations of its hum when their hands brushed together? 

“Sounds fun,” Ren--selfishly, foolishly--agreed, making a mental note to drag the old bike behind the staircase in Leblanc to a shop for a tune-up. 

They reached Ren’s favorite resting spot, an area with a low little fence close to the lake’s edge. He’d brought Ann there a couple times, Kasumi once, even Dr. Takemi once. It was a nice spot for chatting, far away from the throngs of young families and foreign tourists, but it was decidedly a mismatch for the wild energy buzzing through his body. Akechi triggered all of his emotions at once, mixed them together in messy swirls like oil spills over his nerves, slicked up his palms and made it damn near impossible to grab hold of any one thing. Ren dropped his bag on the ground, perched on the railing and hooked his ankles around its rung, reclining backwards until his back was parallel with the lake. It burned in his abdomen and in his legs, sucked the vibrations out of his nerves and funneled them into the clench of his muscles, made it somehow almost easier to breathe.

“Be careful,” Akechi said, easing himself gingerly onto the railing, back ruler-straight, feet planted on the ground. 

_Never_ , Ren thought, tilting his head back until the sun dipped behind Akechi’s head and ringed his hair with light. 

“I’m always careful,” he said with a grin.

Akechi kicked a heel into the fence; Ren felt it in the backs of his knees as he stretched. “You’re nothing of the sort.”

“And how would you know?” Ren asked, reaching his arms backwards until his fingertips skimmed the surface of the lake.

“Just look at you,” Akechi said, letting out a little laugh as Ren pulled himself back up. “Look at what you’re doing right now.” 

Ren laughed too, shamelessly pulling his undershirt up to his forehead to dab away sweat, grinning as Akechi’s gaze swept over his navel. “Spending time with you isn’t _that_ dangerous.” 

Akechi blinked, blinked again, and _cackled_ before clamping his hand down over his mouth. It was a dark sound, rich and deep and thick in the air, rang sharp and low as it settled in stripes over the pit of Ren’s stomach.

“You really are something else,” Akechi said through the gaps in his fingers. “Truly intriguing. Would you like to head to the cafe now?”

Ren jumped off the fence, picked up his bag and pulled Akechi to his feet, as a brand-new idea took hold in his imagination. “Not yet. C’mon. Time for the real reason I wanted to come here.” 

“The real reason?” Akechi asked. “And here I thought we were just having a nice walk along this path.”

Ren flashed a grin and tugged on Akechi’s hand, leading him down the last curve of the trail, until they reached a covered wooden dock. “Don’t all paths have a destination?”

“How very philosophical. I suppose the coffee must be kicking in--” Akechi stopped mid-sentence as Ren pulled him down the dock towards the rental counter. “You can’t be serious.”

"One rowboat, please,” Ren said, letting a wicked gleam dance openly across his face while a delightful mix of panic and fury fought for control of Akechi’s. He let go of Akechi’s hand, fished his wallet out of his pocket and paid the sleepy-looking attendant, who thankfully didn’t seem to recognize Akechi in his ponytail. 

(Not that Ren was going to bring that up and validate his ridiculous experiment.)

“Rowboat number eight,” the attendant instructed. “Please ensure you return it on time.” 

Akechi raised an eyebrow when they reached their boat, a rough-looking vessel rimmed with a deep blue stripe. “I wonder how frequently they care for these. It looks rather worn, don’t you think?”

Ren rolled his eyes. “It’ll be fine.” 

Akechi ignored him, kneeling on the dock and snapping a couple photos of the boat with the lake in the background. 

“For insurance purposes,” he said brightly once he noticed Ren’s quizzical stare. 

Ren stifled the urge to push him into the water. 

Akechi stepped first onto the boat, claiming the rower’s seat and holding out his left hand out to Ren. “Come on, then.” 

He took hold of the oars after Ren climbed aboard, took them on a gentle curve towards an inlet on the far side of the lake. They sat in silence for quite some time, but Akechi seemed content with rowing, taking them first past a hidden little shrine before steering the boat towards the center of the lake. The sun baked hot against Ren’s skin, but the breeze was nice, light and languid over the tips of his nose and chin. And the view was even better: the sun teased golden streaks into Akechi’s brown hair, its reflections off the water bathed his face in glimmering scales. A little grin reclined along the line of his jaw, and his ponytail slipped down around his ears--

“The sun looks quite pretty on the water, wouldn’t you agree?” Akechi finally said, his syllables softer than when he spoke on TV. “It would make for a nice picture.” 

Ren pulled out his phone and snapped a photo of Akechi, arms tensed with the weight of the oars, tiny flicker of a smile still clinging to his lips right up until the shutter sounded. It was reckless and impulsive, but Akechi was beautiful, and Ren was far too selfish to let the moment pass without capturing it. Sometimes Ren felt like he’d stolen their bond from the path of fate, but in that moment, he was certain it was fate who’d stolen something precious from him. 

“Really?” Akechi chided, but his smile didn’t fade. “Surely the scenery would’ve made for a better subject than me.”

Ren shrugged. “Too many other boats clogging up the frame.”

Akechi looked around and shook his head, eyes glinting with a sudden mischief. “And nearly all of them are shared by couples, hm? I wonder if they’d still come here if they knew the legend of the Benzaiten shrine.”

The breeze changed direction, tossed a spray of water against the lenses of Ren’s glasses. “What legend?” he asked, pulling them from his face and cleaning them on his collar. 

Akechi looked straight into Ren’s unguarded eyes. “You don’t know it?”

Ren shook his head. 

“They say Benzaiten flies into a jealous rage whenever a couple passes her shrine,” Akechi said, gesturing backwards towards the shrine he'd rowed them by earlier. “Her curses are said to be the cause of many break-ups for couples who visit Inokashira Park together. I’m surprised you’ve never heard it.” 

Ren shrugged. “Doesn’t scare me.”

“Don’t believe in curses?” Akechi asked, raising his eyebrows.

Ren looked straight into Akechi’s eyes, smirked Joker’s smirk and spoke before he could think better of it. 

“Oh, I believe in them,” he said, “but they’ve never been able to do much damage to me.” 

To Arsène, he meant. To the only persona Ren tried to kill before he understood that it couldn’t be done; the only persona who refused to vacate Ren’s body no matter how many times he tried to banish him. The only persona Ren never called, no matter the enemy, no matter the matchup; the only persona tied to _Ren_ and not to Joker’s mask--

“Interesting,” Akechi said, but he sheltered his gaze, splashed a little too much water under the oars as he turned the boat back towards shore. “But I wonder if that’s always the case. What can cause no damage in some circumstances can hurt quite a bit in others, wouldn't you agree?”

_Another with powers similar to yours--_

“Only if they catch you off-guard,” Ren said, and Akechi’s eyes lit up.

“On that, we agree,” he said. “You're truly fascinating. I’m sorry for the strange tangent. I have the oddest thoughts around you sometimes. Let’s return the boat before we’re late, hm? I’d still like to treat you to another coffee.”

Ren nodded, cupped his hand around Akechi’s knee and squeezed as a stabbing sort of ache sliced through his stomach. He blinked, and for a moment, a black mask snapped down across Akechi’s face, details blurred and boundaries imprecise. He rubbed his eyes until it vanished, reached out and stroked his thumb along the ridges of Akechi’s knuckles as the whole of his body shook with Arsène’s roaring laughter.


End file.
